Victory
by Kariko Emma
Summary: Harou, famed Karada, and Saru-Shin. A brief history.
1. On A Moonless Night In the Land of Earth

**Summary:** Harou, famed Karada, and Saru-Shin. A brief history.

**Author's Note:** Born in early May (before Cou ended) from too much personal liking toward the sometimes really odd and really funny (precarious) relationship of Harou Nekai and Ryouma Saru-Shin, I wanted to write this not just as supplement, but to satisfy their stories, and whence they came. And yes, this was also influenced by J. Conrad's '_Victory_'. So hence, I probably wrote this mostly for myself…You needn't have had read Cou in order to read this dumb diversion into the past…Although…it is called '_Victory_' for a reason…

**Disclaimer:** Wow, I did create these OCs: Harou Nekai, Karada, Iyadomi Keiko, Morino Chinatsu, Satoya Arisu, Cou, etc., and Hatake Ryouma Saru-Shin. But alas, I did not create the Senju, nor anyone else in the Naruto-verse. So, hence, do not own Naruto. Thank you ff dot net for giving us this outlet…even if you do screw with the formatting from time to time. And for the record, in regards to my Arisu, '_sato-oya'_ means _foster parent_. Can anyone say '_Amy Foster_'…? (Even though Arisu corresponds to the Eng. 'Alice'…) Oh, I love notes to text… And yes, this was supposed to be 5 chapters, then 6, then it's like 'ah heck. Seven it is.' Went from May 8 or 9, to July 5 and 6 (typed)—almost two months exactly.

**Special Dedication:** To those who read Cou, with warmest, deepest thanks. And thank you Tahle for pronouncing 'Harou' in French for me… And to all those who, like myself, struggle with severe anxiety and depression. If you feel the way Harou does, get help. Some days I wonder what J.C. would have been like had he conquered his depression…There are many people who struggle with these issues, and equally, many who have recovered to begin their lives anew.

**Genre:** Romance/Tragedy; Because are all my stories are secretly this nature…? Rated only for death, since I think this much or this kind warrants high rating. On a personal note, I think it's obvious what Dura went on to become: a historian…! …BUT HEY EVERYONE, CALIKO KEPT IT TO 52 K WORDS THIS TIME! (According to MS Word anyway)… Sorry!

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_Lefty can't sing the blues, all night long like he used to,  
__The dust that Pancho bit down south, ended up in Lefty's mouth.  
__The day they laid poor Pancho low, Lefty split for Ohio;  
__Where he got the bread to go, there ain't nobody knows._

_-_**Pancho and Lefty**_; by Townes Van Zandt_

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_**Victory**_

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Chapter 1  
_**On 'A Moonless Night' In the Land Of Earth**_

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It was the absolute worst howling wind he'd ever heard (which was saying something), whistling long and senseless like black radio static in the night, throwing in the mist, spits of rain, and sea foam off the great sea north of tsuchi. Combining with the dry shallow sand, mud was lacing his over-size brown cloak and on his shoes and hair beneath the hood, finding every fold and crevice to make him look like a real sand man from the dunes like in a horror story. The sea, in roars reminiscent of charging lions, crashed and swung onto land like it were going to cover the entire coastland and beyond. It may as well have swept him out into the churning ocean lest he became plastered in mud as he struggled just to walk. Further and further the wind pushed him near the dull brown and black rocks, threatening to entomb the mere mold in a grave of shale and limestone. He tried keeping straight alongside the rock, but could not with a steady pace, even if he was built well. He was still too thin and lanky to be so grounded like a true man of the sea.

He left earlier that morning from a quaint little overnight tavern on the northeast end with fine weather, knowing only from the fishermen locals and the manager of the little place they were expecting some light rain or drizzle as told by the slightly falling barometer. It had not fallen largely, but incrementally, as a mood does before it held pace. It probably dropped much lower by now, giving kindling to idle conversation back in the warm atmosphere of that wooden shack. But his countenance continued to fall as he knew instinctively, it was a flawed idea to leave with that knowledge in the first place. He often ignored his instincts like this, and often he regretted not following up on them later. His mood soured under the dim grey clouds a half an hour after leaving, and finally he admitted to cursing when he felt the wind and sea-rain and the sand some forty-five minutes later. Since leaving, there was no turning back, and nothing else, no houses, no coves to turn to now save the one destination he had to go to—it was a lighthouse. And it was still another four miles away, unseen yet for the thick mist. Normally, he could make it easily within the hour, but at this pace, two hours would be blessed console.

He was infinitely glad he packed the big brown throw. Tsuchi was home to a myriad of elevations, colds, and climates, but he had not expected inclement weather but up high in the mountains, which was where he usually traversed across the rugged moraine to deliver the usual messages, letters, and what not. But here? On the northern coast? The word unfathomable could not leave his breath beyond his cracked lips. Acting vindictive over the lack of compassion (or poetry), the hard, sandy, and wet wind snapped a sudden, strong gust of whiplash against his right shoulder, ramming the left into a large boulder nearly as tall as himself. The wind continued rushing wildly, pinning his slow attempts to stand. While looking up for one brief moment, the cliff, he saw, standing over the little rocky coast was lined with a hedge and forest of trees, and at the forefront of these trees, emerged from deep green shadows, he thought he saw a shadow emerge. The glance he had, had been fleetingly brief—when he looked again, the figure was gone. Initially, Harou though it dumb coincidence. After all, why should a ghost (if it were) be out on a horrid, damn day such as this…?

He managed to stand, finally, and continue alongside the line of rock and coast once more, holding his cloak with as much muscle as his legs that kept him on balance, pounding and moving forward; moving west. Perhaps it was the whistling of the wind driving him mad, for as these things go, a song suddenly entered into his head. It was 'sing a song of sixpence, a pocket full of rye; four and twenty blackbirds, baked in a pie'. He'd heard the story first when he was a young child, many, many moons and days ago. Then, glancing back up to the cliff in curiosity, he saw nothing. The rhyme in his head finished out. When he looked back again a moment later, he stopped in recognition of the man's figure on the cliff—it was a shinobi. Blinking, the figure again vanished from view. Distinctly, he could recall he saw a very large blue vest on a very large and tall man—the feature of the face were all hazy and lost, but it appeared he had blue-black hair, largely reminiscent…of Karada.

The rhyme began again (as these things go) from the top very irritably, as Harou continued again along the coast with a fantastic thought beginning to form in his mind: Why would Karada, one of the best of the Senju (_the_ best in his memory), dead for many, many years (about twelve long and lonesome years, and Saru gone for nearly half of them) be out in a place like this, in this God-forsaken weather? Harou had no answer with the squall screeching around his ears in a flat, eerie tone of voice. Karada often watched over his students, but the past student found it hard to believe, even now, the man was watching so diligently. Many had forgotten his name. Even more forgot his face; the pale but warm and weary lines; the small coal black eyes, thin mouth, but deep, soothing, and even soft voice that sounded like it hollowed out from the trunk of a great tree back in Konoha. All the other younger trees grew around it in thin sticks of arrogance and conceit—his shade was grace, and it was calm to those who sought it. He was also powerful. Moreso than any man Harou knew yet today—alive, or dead. But the young trees had eventually grown up as most do, progressively choking out the light to the old, giving way to dead branches toward the center, the very memory that was his first shinobi sensei.

He could not exactly call the ghost alive. For if what Harou was seeing was real, there was no shinobi, no ninja that would actually confront him in a place and on a day like this. If he were wanted dead, soon after leaving the tavern would have been the prime chance to strike and be done with it. There was no iwa ninja, taki man, even tsuchi man that would appear there on that cliff, standing so apart from this world, yet pretend to take on that watchful gaze toward a lone disciple. Harou actually found himself with an icy cold chill crawling up the back of his neck and through the ends of his brown-blonde hair, the synapses twitching behind his ears. Karada had an appreciation, even a fond liking of Tsuchi so admirable, but _here?_ Harou did not think himself so worthy of that supernatural happenstance, not for all the rice in rice country. He believed in chance, and Lord knows he believed in fate after Monkey died, but Karada, he felt, was the one man who was gone forever, permanently, like a de-commissioned ferry ninety years too young—he had no reason to stand guard any longer, and if he did, it should be back in Konoha from inside a tree, not here…

The wind did not relent. Like enemy kunai, arrows, and shuriken, it flung the mud, sand, and foam onto his clothes yet, up his nose, beating away at the hood untiringly to blind his eyes as if seeing ghosts were some illicit form of psychomancy. With a quick glimpse, he could see the lighthouse now, in wisps and streaks of clear air, still quite distant. But the sight encouraged him while the wind pounded harder and swirled faster yet—noticing the water charge, crashing against itself and onto shore with great gusts of sound and spray. He did not travel on boats on the seas or oceans unless necessary, like toward the west coast of Kumo, or to the land of waves, which he had to frequent on occasion. Both Senju brothers were aware of his dislike for that mode of transportation, so he was not sent there too often. For the most part, he traveled to the land of earth, Taki, Rain, Suna, and even Kusa, sporadically, where the rivers there made him sick with some distant memories...

Finally, a great swell came ashore, rushing through the rocks, instantly gluing his shoes to the sand and mud—he nearly tripped and twisted an ankle before he caught his balance on a rock to his left, where the sideways fall narrowly gashed his hand. Instead, he only bruised it. Resiliently standing once more in sheer defiance, he noticed the gunk of what the sea rolled in; a few wooden boards strewn in angles over the sand like hurdles, the water grass in tangles—but the path was clear and wet before him with the sea rolling in further inland now. As he looked up toward the skyline due west, he could not see the lighthouse, in fact, the sky looked even dimmer and more black further north-west. Like an ominous portent, it was moving nearer and nearer with lightning and torrential rain in promise, thunder and cold. And with that cold, Harou sighed, trudging onward again with a shinobi's resolution in his gut to get the job done and be done with. He could hear the manager now in a stern civilian voice, talking with his wife, wondering if the leaf ninja had really gone through with the eight mile trek, but with over half the time gone now should have told him Harou had not turned back, nor had he seriously considered it. True shinobi were no quitters, and Harou agreed with that: Karada had taught him so.

And pressing on, Harou glanced upward again, and sure enough, he caught a flicker of a shadow that moved near the tree line. The sight was less clear now as he focused solely on walking straight through the wind and rain's fury, with the footprints left behind disappearing from the constant roll of the water. Perhaps the shadow was indifferent to the coastline, Harou mused idly if he was not simply imagining the movement. It was true, more like himself, Karada was born on land, and rarely traveled the seas unless need be. But it was also true, Karada was more of a free spirit than any other man—beside Monkey, who would go to Iron country and back if asked for a fine keg of local ale (though Saru never drank). Often times Harou used to wonder how the tall Senju ever let himself be taken by a woman in holy matrimony…: He was never home. And judging by the way his sons grew up mostly arrogant and conceited showed he never raised them himself, for if he had, they would have risen to be fine warriors or workers each, instead of lowering to such abominable manners as drinking, gambling, and womanizing. All three of which vices Harou despised, and were the sole things that could ruin a shinobi overnight.

For a brief instant, Harou saw the lighthouse once more. Another hour passed before he could see the little house on the coast, standing in front of the tall, cylindrical building with the shroud of fog hanging all around like a veil. Shortly he praised God for finally arriving, telling himself it was only a few more paces now—he moved forward, and with one last half-curious look up the cliff to his left, he saw nothing but a haze and mixture of green shadows, nothing distinct. Harou tapped on the navy-painted door, between a pair of navy shudders, closed for the day. After a moment, with no answer, Harou knocked again. He waited there a moment longer before a middle-aged man opened the door. The balding man immediately recognized the headband Harou had tied across his forehead before he set out—"Oh, my," the man said, and ushered him inside the foyer. "Good Heavens, man," he burst in as Harou caught his breath on the warmer, drier air. "You came all the way here in a squall like this?" He could hear his lady moving in the den, "Satsuyo, please prepare some hot tea for this young man."

"Thirty-five is not young," Harou stated.

"It is younger than I," the man smiled. "Stay right there, I'll get you a blanket."

"Thank you."

Standing there, still weary and shivering like the last oak leaf to fall come spring, he urged his hands to move, but they seemed frozen, holding the cold folds of the fabric together. Fortunately, charging forth from the other room, the lady set down the tea on a side table and peeled the cloak off herself while her husband arrived with a dry replacement. She threw down the heavy cloak and wrapped the dry around the ninja herself. "Wait—" he remembered suddenly, and on the inside of his vest, his stiff fingers pulled out an envelope. Harou held it out for the man, in exchange for the cup of tea. He could smell ginger and chamomile—repulsive to his tastes, but he drank it anyway for the warmth. After nearly a third of it went down, he said, "From Tobirama. He said it was quite important."

"I see," the man said. "Still—it could not be so important to make you stand weather like this…"

"Sir…" Harou said after a moment, "I have stood worse for simpler means, I can assure you. After this, there can be nothing that surprises me now." There wouldn't be, not for seeing a ghost on his journey.

His lady scooped up the wet smock with the same unflinching ease and conduct of a mother and said, "Take off your shoes, and come into the den."

"But, ma'am—"

"That is an order," she said airily, but with a short wink of a smile. She turned in the opposite direction, presumably to trying washing the sandy, wet item. "Yes," continued her husband, having opened the letter, "Please, come…"

As it seemed now a compulsory request, Harou reluctantly followed after removing his shoes. He ran a hand through his hair, and the back of it was surprisingly dry. His clothes, too, had been spared dampness. He pulled off the hitai-ate, and carried it loosely around his right wrist, knowing not else what to do with it.

The den was quite large. With two picture windows on the south wall on Harou's left, the fireplace stood in the center of the home on the west wall, with a large mahogany brown mantle, upon which decorative items and a vine—it nearly looked real, but it was not. The flowers, too, were fake in beautiful glass vases. Candles, in trios, stood in the center of the mantle and on both ends, none of which lit for the time of day. Above hung a golden framed mirror, quite handsome, reflecting pictures, lighting, and warmth. The collection of books stood on his right all in tight brown shelves along the north wall, each book brown, black, blue, and old leather bound. It made Harou jealous. There were many novels, fiction and non, stacked together closely, with little space left to spare, the man must be an avid collector. The room was nicely furnished, and with a handsome, quaint couple to enjoy it. The man insisted Harou sit near the fire, so Harou did, on the old blue-black slate tile adjacent, for he had not specified where, and the warm wind blowing over the screen was comfort enough. Harou eyed him, still reading the letter, engrossed in the words completely unknown to the shinobi. Harou did not much care what it said, nor would he inquire.

His teacup was refilled horrifically to the top again by Satsuyo and Harou nodded and said "Thank you" nevertheless. She sat down after a wary moment with her husband's stare over the article. Luckily, he aroused himself from the page and began to smile that smile of friendship and amity Harou once knew very well. The man sat down in the sofa chair opposite his wife, glancing once more at the contents while Harou began to feel a nasty headache coming on while he drank the tea. The pungent smell of raw ginger was known to do it to him. He could only guess she chose the ginger as one might choose mint for ailments. He was no convalescent; he was merely cold.

"It is a letter," the man announced dumbly. "From Tobirama," he smiled, and his wife looked expectant—the ninja who brought it was staring into the fire indifferently. "He has asked me to bring in a ship, at the close of next week, in the night. A small ferry boat is coming in from the northern isle, with two men."

"…Oh?" His wife interjected dutifully, when all other enthusiasm seemed dry. "Is that all?"

"…Yes," he said after a moment, as if he were suddenly taciturn. Glancing upon Harou for a moment, he stood up with the letter still in hand, and he walked toward his grand library. Satsuyo eyed him, and then went back to her own teacup. Really, Harou mused to himself, it was of no consequence to her now but to remind him of the date and the lamp-lighting. But the man grazed over his books like he were looking for something to read that evening. After moment, looking over assorted books and volumes, he found what he was looking for, and he brought it near the fire, and offered it out, to Harou. "For you," After a pause, Harou set down the cup and took the slim book. It was a dark navy leather, the cover and back was as smooth as silk, and the binding strong like it had only seen a couple openings in it's time. "I believe it is what you were looking for. You may keep it."

Having no name, no lettering on the cover save an indentations of a square with a relief of an oak leaf in the center, Harou opened it to find:

_Shinobi_, by a Senju Hashirama.

It was the only book he'd ever penned in that context, or as early, for he was quite young when he wrote the short essay-like piece. Harou did not know whether to laugh or cry: his first inclination was to chuck it out the window, into the roaring sea, when even then the waves would carry it back to him annoyingly, "Oh, sir, I cannot—"

"Nonsense. I have other editions. Tobirama asked if I might, and I will, for it means so much to you by his own kind word."

Harou mentally winced. He couldn't exactly slap the current hokage in the face for this great honor, nor could he kick, punch, beat, or club. Someday I will thank him, Harou thought sullenly to himself while faking an interested look through the dedication and the crisp pages to follow. "Thank you," he said outside himself. The little anger and torment he carried within his stomach roiled inside, hounding with some disdain for the great leader, and mixed with the ginger, he felt as if he were going to vomit. What a gift indeed. Perhaps he _would_ chuck it out somewhere, in a river, in a crag; bury it deep in the cold snow, and as it froze to death, he would calmly walked away with something of a little, smug smile across his face, guilty with pleasure. What a gift indeed. "Thank you," he said again, more genuinely.

"You're very welcome. I hope you will stay with us the night," the man retook his position in the chair. "So foul a sky…"

"Clears not without a storm," he supplemented the man's quote. "Yes," Harou smiled faintly, "I know it."

"So you shall?"

It seemed he had little choice; he could feel a wink of a smile upon his shoulder. Women were something else entirely. Karada should have known that.

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"Mr Harou," he said after breakfast the next morning, "Will you come into the den with me?"

Harou followed him while Satsuyo cleared the dishes away herself and Harou could feel there was some other something written inside that letter between friends. He guessed Tobirama would have it in for him again.

The weather outside was much the same. The downpours of rain had passed, but the wind was still whining in current like it were one with rage over something, the sea, the shore, the people, or a mixture of the three. Now out of it, inside a warm home, Harou sympathized like he were kin to it. Indignance like that, they shared, especially when the man strut in bluntly, "About the letter," he said in a tone of confidentiality, "Tobirama informed me you were to see them home," Here, he paused, as if to allow Harou to inquire 'why' or 'how come' like a child—Harou had zero interest in questions, but he asked anyway, "Are they important?"

"Quite. They are Konoha shinobi and have been gathering information in secret this past year about iwagakure and their conduct."

"Oh I see," said Harou plainly with a nod, hoping his tone put end to it; "Thank you. I will wait for them, then." He turned around to get his cloak she'd hung in the laundry room to dry in order to finally take leave, but the man objected, Will you not stay with us?" And then his wife walked in, "What's this?" she asked, "Oh you can't be leaving so soon."

"I cannot trespass upon your kindness, ma'am—"

"Nonsense! There is—"

"I cannot stay here," said Harou finally, but not unkindly, "I cannot take the remote chance I might endanger you all with my presence. I will be at the lighthouse on Friday, and in the meantime, thank you very much for you hospitality."

Though there was a small pang of regret seeing their disappointed faces, the leaf ninja felt infinitely better once he was out the door. And then, the thought of a prolonged stay soured his mind horribly. With the wind at his back outside the cottage, he spent a moment looking up before he went on his way, scanning the cliffs with their dark green shadows, looking for something, or someone, on the move. As he saw nothing, he turned east, the way he came, with his navy book tucked in the inside pocket of his brown vest. There was no haste, no rush to throw it out yet, but the thrill of the prospect set a small smile upon his dry face. The wind was coming mostly from behind him, and he knew he would reach the town soon.

From curiosity, he glanced again, on his right, up the cliff—there, searching along the tree line, he could see a faint shadow move. It was only a shadow. There was nothing distinguishable other than a head and shoulders. The smile glued on his face, Harou felt strange. Really, Karada—if it were him—this was entirely unnecessary. The thought then occurred to Harou he could be simply losing his mind, and all of it was as unreal as his fantasy to say what he meant all of the time to whomever he spoke, which he could no longer do after Monkey died. It could be as unreal as his wish to ditch this mission and head on east to Taki; his favorite place to go now to get lost and be amused while wandering like the dumb little nomad he was. No, he thought. It was Karada. For the Senju all shared the trait of pestering, save Karada was more graceful at it than the rest. Four times now, it was Karada.

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The shinobi was welcomed back into the tavern in the little port town without much ceremony. The manager's wife, Yasue, noticed him, or rather, the brown cloak, through a row of clean glasses overtop the bar counter. "Harou-san!" she smiled kindly, "I did not think we'd see you back so soon."

An expectation the two shared: "Indeed," he murmured to himself, and noticed the bar-room was almost empty. Three anglers sat around a circular table, eating brunch, and that was it, there was no one on the stools at the counter. He walked forward and claimed a stool where she was working. "What would you like?" she asked, and he thought for a second as the smell wafted around him, "Whatever they're having."

Yasue smiled, and worked on the order.

"Ma'am," he continued after a hesitation spent in meditation, "This will seem a very odd, and out of place question—I hope you will not take offence," he said quietly, "But have you ever seen a ghost?"

She looked up briefly, wearing a slightly twisted smile. "Well…" she thought, like she needed to search for such a memorable happenstance in her memory, "I have never _seen_ one, per say, but I would believe they're real. Why, did you see one?"

After a moment, he sighed, reluctant to answer the question. He knew he was asking for trouble to ask her such a thing, and he received it as one of the men must have had good ears to hear what Harou thought was private. The fisherman, the tallest, most broad-shouldered one walked toward the ninja, and sat on the seat adjacent to Harou on his left, "You see ah' ghost?" he asked in a deep, curious voice. His pepper and orange beard moved with his mouth, but his eyes were a piercing light blue sky and unfailingly steady. His small hat was of a true cobalt blue color, hiding the same pepper and orange hair. Harou did not feel inclined to admit to it, but assumed the man would: "Masatane haunts the quay and the ship-chandler's office, playing tricks as you enter and leave," the fisherman told. "We had a business man like yourself come down here once, and after he got off the ship, he walked with his brother, the skipper, down there after they were brutally attacked by one of those inquisitive water clerk guys… Well they got down there to the office building, and the poor little man saw a head peek out from the side of the shack. Followed it around the building, and there it was again, poking out the east end. Followed it to the north end, again, saying, 'What! What do you want!'. There it was, poking it's head off the front of the shack, and then the little guy ran for the front of the building, nothin' there. Absolutely nothing," the fisherman smiled. "That little guy then ran _in_ the building, couldn't see him, and then all around the building, around and around, backwards and forwards, and never saw the head again. It was in the day-time, too. He asked all around, and we knew Masatane was having some fun that afternoon. The little guy never came back here ever again."

One of the anglers at the table raised his glass in respect—it was either sake or water; Harou assumed it was water. He could not have been expected to be drinking at noon, even if he looked to be the type.

The fisherman beside him was expectant for some kind of answer. "I am not a business man," Harou stated.

"Oh? Then…what profession?" the man eyed him curiously.

"He is a shinobi," Yasue supplied, giving Harou a plate with a sandwich on it. She also gave him a tall glass of water.

"A ninja! Who for?"

"Konoha," Harou answered.

"Ah…Funny, you really don't look the type," he said honestly. "So who did you see? Around these parts, we've got some limestone, and ample ocean: prime fuel for spirits. And down in the cove, across the way, toward the lighthouse, after dusk, go in there, and you can see whoever the hell you wanna see."

After taking a drink, Harou looked at him oddly, "I have made that trip three times now, and I have never seen a cove."

"It is hidden, at the base of the cliff," the angler said quietly. "Masatane never goes there. The ones that do want to crossover so bad, they never come back. The legend began fifty years ago when a princess drowned herself in the sea near there because her prince was never coming back. She is said to haunt the coast. Did you see her?"

"No," said Harou, "I did not," There was little reason now to be secretive about whom he saw. Harou sighed. "If you really care to know, I saw my old sensei, overtop the cliff. I saw him five times in two trips, standing near the trees."

"Mm…I see," the angler said. "Well. He must be looking out for you."

"I did not think he was the type—even in death," Harou eyed the calm water inside the glass, "I thought it was permanent."

"You don't believe in ghosts?"

"No, I do now, but I figured, after he died…the _way_ he died, he was gone forever."

"Do you really think a person would be gone forever? Well then—I guess people can still surprise you, even after death."

"I suppose," Harou admitted.

"Well, I will let you eat your meal. I must get back out there if I might have mine, tonight."

Harou nodded.

The angler left him with a full plate—food for thought.

.

He answered yes when the manager asked him if he were staying the night. "Eight days, eight nights."

"Well, it's an honor, Harou-san."

The kind word he used, honor, brought back memories. Karada was a man of honor, as only a man could be. He made himself many names in his lifetime, and lunatic was one of them, becoming the first man to do this, or that—crazy ventures and victories in of themselves, but he was able to conquer, without being conquered, and to search without going lost, and light the lamp himself when all other's spirits were dashed in the darkest of nights. Victories like that earned great measure, and Harou could not see since then any man, or any other conquest quite like Karada's. Perhaps Tobirama was the closest, in demeanor more furtive than his brother, but still. Really Tobirama. The man had listened to his older brother too much to remember the power in reticence.

And in such silence, Harou took a stroll two days later when the weather finally calmed. Saturday nights, the tavern was quite full. Harou walked down the coast toward the lighthouse. The youthful curiosity must have still been in him to be walking like this for the sake of a legend when he had done so faithfully more than twenty years before for a living one. His real wonder was to find that hidden cove the men had mentioned. The last of the sun was brilliant orange and red over the sea in the west like a picture on a postcard, quite calm and almost tranquil with the wind only blowing at a slow pace and the night cool and cold. Leaving behind the yellow lights for the deeper tones reminded him he was a wanderer at heart, tied down only by mission reports and the occasional funeral of some great shinobi general back in the village, none of which important events to him. But he kept all these sentiments still to himself for if Tobirama knew, upon Hashirama's warning, Harou would be locked away for good with his hands tied behind him forever, unable to wring his own pathetic neck.

He searched every indentation thoroughly at a distance as he went along the coast, walking now on the left side of the rock, feeling a little foolish as he did so. Finally, he saw what appeared to be a dark eye in the rock, a large shadow he had not seen before in the shape of a triangle near some tufts of grass. As he walked nearer, he found it was the little inlet cove the man had mentioned. It looked as if it curved around on the inside, giving access to the sea near the lighthouse through a narrow tunnel perhaps. Harou looked down the beach to the shore: there, near the water, the princess must have stood, fifty years ago. She would have been an old woman now, had she not ended her life. Harou was not interested in going inside and having a séance, so he turned back east, and did not glance up over the cliff, nor suppose Karada was going to come out the cave and give him some advice.

Since going out that night, Harou kept to himself for the rest of his exile, sneaking in and out to walk the town, the dock and back, making it a point to see the ship chandler's office. He did not see any ghosts linger there either. No peeping heads. The only familiar man he saw the morning he had to leave was first the manager, stacking clean little baskets and plates, and clear, clean glasses. "Ah, Harou," he greeted. "Leaving?"

Harou nodded. "I will not be back here for some time."

"That's too bad," the manager said.

"Mm, so it is," Harou agreed, taking a seat up front. The room was empty. "I regret I had to stay over this long in the first place. It's so dumb," he said irritably when he understood thereafter the first night: Tobirama needed him that time to read that cursed book by his older brother. Since the night he received it, Harou had not turned a single page. He decided once he was on his way to the next location, he'd throw it into the first native fire he saw and finally exact his sweet revenge.

"Orders…?" the man filled in.

Harou nodded sullenly.

"Let not your heart be troubled, I follow them too, with the business," he looked around his large house fondly. "Granted I don't report to tsuchikage, but I suppose the government is just as cruel," he said with a faint smile.

"You don't know the half of it," Harou said, without realizing he said it. When the man inquired an interested, "Oh?" Harou shook his head, and the fisherman with the blue hat walked in with another man.

"I must be off," Harou concluded, and he stood.

"…You leaving, ninja?" the angler asked.

Harou nodded.

"Will you be back?"

"Not immediately…no. It may be some time."

"Well, safe journey to you."

"Thank you. Take care."

Harou had a late lunch with the keeper of the lighthouse and his wife who were more than happy to see him once more, before he and the man headed to the lighthouse itself at dusk.

The small ship, the _Mutsu-Maru_ anchored near that home before going on to the ports. Harou met the two ninja, all in plain clothes on the shore after he bid the lighthouse keeper a final goodbye. Together the trio pressed on southeast, going up onto the cliff where it was a forestland of pine with a clear balsam scent in the air, and Harou had no time, and no care to go looking for shadows as they ran to a city, a large one on the southeast, a day's journey then to the border with Taki. With luck, no one was following them, and no one noticed—not even the roaming ghosts paid attention. They made it to the city, then on to Taki, and then to Konoha, where another three-day journey awaited them before home.

One of the men was quite young, in his twenties, and the other was older than Harou, forty or forty-one. On their second night stopped inside Konoha, with only about fourteen hours or so left in their journey, the older man, a qualified jounin (though Harou did not know exactly what made him so beside his black eyes), remarked if Harou was carrying something inside his vest. It was a pointed question since little of his vest showed between the parts of his cloak, and Harou did not like it with the same sick feeling he got whenever spring rolled around in the land of waves, and he was there. The man had jet black hair: he was an Uchiha. Harou did not like them in general. But he answered, "Yes."

"What is it?"

Harou grew the suspicion he was being discovered in some manner; he did not concede to fear, nor intimidation. "It is a book." There was the chance he was imagining all this, Harou's mind was naturally distrustful, especially toward that clan.

"Oh?"

"Mm."

"May I see it?"

Biting his remarks to himself, Harou pulled out the navy leather with care, and handed it to him.

"Ah! '_Shinobi_' by the great Hashirama," he recited. "This is a great read. I have not seen one of these in years, but I remember it very well. He began it so humbly, it's almost like a little tale in of itself—did you read it—?" Here he put his assistant in shadow on the spot who stuttered a yes, but it had 'been a while'. "Yes. No one could forget these words. Do you carry it with you?"

The Uchiha offered the book back, and Harou returned it to the pocket.

"It was a gift," Harou said plainly.

"Oh I see. Have you read it recently?"

Harou's suspicious mind guessed now Tobirama must have asked him to inquire so pointedly. Mere curiosity could not lead a man to ask such things, and let alone not of an Uchiha. And if he believed that wild supposition, he was obligated to say yes. But if the man was a sensory, he would know the real answer. "No," Harou admitted simply. "I have not."

"Oh…pity," the older man remarked simply. He picked up a long twig, and poked their fire.

The topic soon changed to Konohagakure, and the trio together had not been back there enough times to comment if anything had changed.

.

"Harou," He'd waited for this moment since the firelight, and he decided he would take it with dignity, and a good dose of calm, a straight spine, and an honest mind: technically, he did not have to read anything he did not want to. It was his right. He had made the promise years ago to follow Karada's teachings. Perhaps this was his eternal punishment for purposefully attempting to fall off the mountain all those years ago: he earned some little star by his name they needed to fix, or reexamine from time to time whenever they deemed it necessary. Well, so be it, Harou said to himself. He would bear it. He breathed deeply and prepared himself to lie.

"Are you all right?"

"Yes hokage-sama," He said with extraordinary calm.

.

Three months later, on his forth mission out since going to the lighthouse, he had been delivering yet another dumb letter, this time to a very wealthy prince of a northern district. Perhaps Saru-Shin might have been able to call himself as such in spirit only had he had the chance to marry his raven-haired fiancée. But even that would not have satisfied their imaginations. Even if the princess could never be Queen, Monkey would have called her so, and as king _and_ queen, the two would have ruled and lived out the rest of their days in perfect happiness, poverty, and a small, run-down little kingdom of their own on the west edge of Konoha. Saru never did tell him if he had finally bought that ring he saw under the clear glass for a price worthy of love and simultaneous destitution of half a year's wages. If he did, Harou was decently certain it was thrown like his meaningless object was being tossed now: into the bottom of a deep, rocky basin, never to be read again by anything remotely human.

It was another moonless night in the land of earth, and Harou felt a great storm approaching quietly, and ominously, having shielded the stars one by one with it's out reach of darkness. Really, what was a little rain? Harou took his time, savoring the moment and the quick adrenaline he felt whenever he did something this important—or this wild. Monkey, through his masquerades of smiles and boyish laughter, would have probably conceded the point to the pessimist. Things of that sort normally went unspoken between the two and between them and the world, minus Karada inside of it. Instead, after a while, a large smile would show from the Monkey King, purely inimitable in the fashion of debatable reincarnation, and a verse or two lofted on the thick air of some old and forgotten song he'd written faithfully in the brown leather book the Senju gave him. Really, Harou thought, looking around at the mountains and rocks: the ghost was not to be found this night. Harou looked back down, trying to remember something Saru hummed so Harou could really feel like he was spiting Karada's brethren.

Of course! 'The Minstrel Boy'!

It was something sad, but upbeat, and upon Monkey's asking, it was the only song Karada needed. Harou smirked a hard and biting smile and turned, going on his way ahead of the storm. That was just how Saru ticked, and Keiko, too…

They would dance all night, or at least most of it: even Saru had not been accustomed to dancing two hours straight.

Harou would have traded that book just then to watch them.

It occurred to him, he never did, and never thought much of it; he was always on duty: always on the move.

.


	2. The Kusa River Line

Chapter 2  
_**The Kusa River Line**_

.

.

He did not want to go back, but he did so believing he could be in little danger now, with his young wits and a very tall captain on his right, taller than most, and Senju full in blood. As long as they stayed on the eastern side of the river, he might avert his eyes easily over all the old wooden ships passing along the teal green shore, and those sitting stationary when they came to rest like terrible castles and house-boats at the docks along the west end. Harou hated each of them equally, the ferries, the dinghies, the little yachts and scuttles; each of them combined might not tear a foam of white wave in that dirty blue-brown river, but the sight of them was enough to fray the memories in the young man's mind like fluff from a stuffed bear… By Jove. With a stiff spine he walked beside Karada faithfully, and so did the rest with the short but incredibly powerful Aburame Kanae on the Senju's left, wearing his coal color hair a little wild upward, and his round shades on at all times of day. He said his eyes were light sensitive. His uniform was a charcoal kimono separated by a light blue sash, and a kunai was hidden in a discreet sheath near his waist. Harou was only fifteen, and behind the trio were two other devote (and long time) followers for years, both as old as the Aburame man: somewhere in their twenties, while Karada was thirty. Harou was the newest addition, green as Kusa grass or Konoha tree leaves, and lucky, too, being able to be accepted into the Senju's team. He had fought the Aburame man by the request of the two others behind him, and Harou accepted the (introductory) challenge, determined to prove himself a capable ninja in their eyes. It was his first real test of mettle against a countryman. With some luck again, he was found to be not entirely stupid to their imaginations. He knew full well how the Aburame fought, and to find the way to beat them was extremely difficult. For if you could get past the Aburame, you were considered good—that was what the first thing Harou learned on the fly about Karada's team.

Unfortunately, there were seldom few who could. And though Karada, in a never before seen case of show had not deemed the challenge necessary for Harou's case, the two, so rooted in tradition, forced the matter of honor onto the fifteen year old who took it on willingly: Harou lasted nearly thirty minutes with the man before any of them saw an insect on his shoulder. The two ninja shrugged and consented. And here he was: twenty-eight days later, bold and fresh, finding himself in the one place he thought would wait at least a few more years. But he would bear it. He breathed deeply and enforced those heavy walls around himself and his memories with strength enough to push even a freighter aside, hauling smelling cargo and gray coal across the river.

"Tsutomu, Nagira, take the east side here. Kanae, go south, and I will go west with Harou. Spread."

Within a second, the young man was alone with the Senju. "Shall we cross the river?" Karada asked with clear and brilliant charcoal black eyes. The arch of his faded pink scar moved under his left eye whenever he smiled.

Overcoming the biggest swell of shock in years, Harou said nothing, and followed the man stiff and hurting now over the dry yellow grass, and onto the river. He followed tentatively, and kept his eyes near his feet during the teal-brown span, pretending to glance around casually, remembering that sickening feeing of crossing it alone in the night when he was very young. He thought he'd drown when the drift wood began to disintegrate. Even now those feelings of dread and adrenaline washed over him leaving him wet with perspiration while Karada stood so very tall ahead of him, without so much as fear as a bear meeting with a butterfly… "The people here are a little furtive, Harou. We must be very vigilant if we are to find the man we are looking for." Furtive was an acute world for his former countrymen. Harou could not manage now a 'yes sir' except a furtive nod. Oh if only he were east with Tsutomu, the young man's heart would not be pounding so loud, for the heart was not exactly secretive, nor did it hide the sickening feeling lodging itself in his gut…The last thing he wanted to do was revert back into a silence that entered into his spirit after leaving this place. The boy did not speak for an entire year.

"All morning, you've been very quiet Harou, are you well?" Karada asked him after a while.

He really had to stop himself for answering 'no'. Instead, after both time and his heart skipped a beat, he uttered a quiet little 'yes sir' even Karada knew by now was unlike him. Oh youth, Harou cursed inwardly, wanting to grow up then and there. The Senju, this Senju was not intrusive, rather, he was playing it the hard way, the way that required immeasurable amounts of patience to get out that 'no' answer at some point. Granted, Harou had never had a Senju captain before, and this one, by history and by memory of the entire shinobi world, was in a league of his own, with everyone calling the man a blessed lunatic. Harou was not sure if even the man's own clan would disown him had they the chance. Karada had done just about everything to earn such aberrant insanity. Harou did not know how many students the man had seen, but it must have been many if he handled them all with such grace, patience, and wisdom. And look at the results Harou remembered; he only wished he were as old and calm as the Aburame man. Youth, he felt, was against him in all respects. And Karada did not pursue the boy's answer, even after they crossed the river: almost five miles for fifteen short years.

Not much had changed.

.

After receiving two empty reports, Karada and Harou went out again in the evening, searching through the various taverns and bars (there were a few that the Senju told Harou to stay outside so the young man was not exposed to the thick air of smoke and drunkenness typical of those places). Harou was grateful until the point he moved around restlessly after he'd been standing there for a few minutes swatting large mosquitoes in the warm Kusa night. As he moved, he continued averting his eyes from the firefly-like lights along the river bank in the east. Paired with the stars and full moonlight overhead, it was even a pretty scene seen as the water looked cool and navy-color, but it was only a brilliant deception in the young man's mind, hiding the river's soil and waste. It was really an ugly thing. "No luck," Karada said again after he exited. "Let's move on, this way."

Harou's' heart panged painfully and then he hesitated when Karada turned north. The Senju noticed this, looked over him and said, "Are you all right?"

"Yes sir," He was quicker this time.

"If anything troubles you young man, please speak up. You are welcome to say anything to me. You have been with me long enough now to know we do not stand upon decorum as in other…more structured, professional cells."

"No sir—nothing," Harou's throat was dry.

Proceeding north, near the west side of the river, they entered into a tavern a mile north Harou could remember vaguely, like a mountain community in the distance, fortified not with fog, but with words and names—people. It was true to fact he had never entered, but he could see the place from atop the deck of the old wooden ship. He knew it was the gathering place for all of the old man's most intimate friends: Inoue, alone with a drink in his hands on the left hand side—Harou could recognize the gray hair from behind; he had not changed. Near the right, the loud obnoxious voice was unmistakable of Yoshizawa, who swore at playing cards as much as he did his own ship that seemed never seaworthy, there was always something that needed fixing. It was a wonder the spars hadn't fallen down on him yet. And there on his right was another familiar voice: Kawazu who was the ideas man, and the four would go along dumbly with Yoshizawa's confrontational leadership.

The Senju noticed again, Harou's frozen statue: a dog began barking and yelping communicatively at the sound of the opening door he could see two new people enter in, and then, after catching the smell of the air she quieted, and the smell enticed her interest to no end: she trotted over without welcome where the Senju did not hold her interest for more than two seconds before she caught the wind of the young man: Harou backed away slowly on instinct, but the dog continued pursuing him and his pant leg with ardent enthusiasm. Harou in a trance backed away clear to the east wall as the grey and brown little bitch held more and more ferocity in her short fur that caught the stare of the child's eyes; the dog leapt up on his legs and barked loudly, in some odd, distant recognition. The young man felt a scream in his gut curdle all his sense until someone (Inoue) called out, "Dog!" And she let herself fall on all fours, and Harou seized the chance to kick her aside (missing her blindly) and Harou briskly walked out to die.

.

Karada walked out sometime later, closing the wooden door to Pandora's box behind him. Harou was waiting. And unbeknownst to everybody for thirty short years, the Senju could sense the dormant fear now and agitation in the young man so strongly, it actually surfaced feelings of the Senju's greatest fears inside himself like the remnants of a long-remedied poison in his blood. How the boy could live with such a debilitating poison, he did not know. "Harou," he said calmly, "Would you care to go further north, or south?"

"South sir," Harou said quickly.

"Fine. Follow me."

Genuinely shocked he was not being reprimanded, Harou had to wait a quiet quarter mile later before the Senju finished, "If anything you remember of this team, Harou…We keep no secrets between us. If at some point in time you choose to speak, that is your choice. I will not force you to do it."

The young man's heart was still beating rapidly, like his body was still shaking off the shock and fur hairs of that damned little dog… "I am not afraid," Harou said outside himself, feigning calm.

"Did you know any of those men?"

"No."

Karada sensed otherwise. "Well, tell you what. After a couple more stops, we'll call it a night. This cloud of gnats at my back keep getting larger…I think they might even be trying to evolve and throw shuriken…"

.

Harou could not sleep, hearing that phrase over and over in his mind, tormenting him to no end; 'I am not afraid'. It bothered him too greatly, where he sat upright and then he stood slowly, putting on his gray vest in silence, and escaped the room for an hour.

He must _not_ be afraid, and he left to prove himself otherwise.

The young man walked north, down along the warm river line, where the light of the moon chilled his skin the same way it had done six years before. He continued walking in that direction, and both his legs and his senses grew numb with fear, alongside that navy color water. But he continued on, toward an old ship he could soon see in the distance, nestled near an equally old dock beyond the small twenty and thirty foot yachts and dinghies. Nothing had changed. As he approached down along the line where the old wooden thing came into view, it was a good distance past the nearest white yacht, where the ship stood alone in the night like a house with no lights. Being so far, it was shielded from the lamplights down on the south end which were not usually lit at night except during holidays. He used the stealth of his ninja training to feel out the area he did not even wish to lay eyes on ever again.

But seeing no one, he climbed the rigging.

The young man stood on the deck he was first carried onto unconsciously, and never stepped off it for almost two long years. A quick feeling of hatred seeped into his skull like the moon had poured it there, warming his animosity toward this place like a baking oven in his bones. His fear, to his surprise, steadily weakened as he took a look around.

The dog had returned, and she had been sleeping contentedly directly underneath the dusty wheel until she heard the soft footfalls trying not to squeak the loose boards of the deck. With a quick arousal, she stood and galloped over and let loose a loud bark until Harou kicked her once more, this time with taijutsu, silencing her for the night. Gazing upon the wheel, everything else, the rope, the deck, the supplies, all were unkempt, dusty, and old; knotted severely with crookedness which Harou was certain was one of the primary building materials of the old sailing vessel. If there were such a way, he believed it would sail the ocean and the seven seas with sloven service and a dizzy route. That was the reason it stayed in dock for so very long. Harou doubted it would pass inspection.

After hesitation spent in deciding whether or not to continue with this memory, Harou came to the steps and went down below, and instantly, he came to the closed door of the state-room. With the trembles back in his hands only the river's air caused, he opened the door in quiet, and saw the old man hunched over on the table, sleeping, with a half-empty bottle near his right hand. The sense of hatred and anger, pain and indignance swirled back against the currents of his sick stomach as he glanced around the awful little anteroom. The table was more worn still, with one of it's legs, Harou noticed, standing on a trio of leather books, broken and fixed yet again. Yoshizawa's excited fist usually paid for it once he admitted he loved the bottle and exuberance more than his wife, sailing, and politics, and in that order.

And there on the left hand side, was the little closet door with the slats on the upper half. Closed. But Harou actually stopped the workings of his mind and wondered for a moment if any other young boys were inside the two by three space. The old man stirred. His picture frames, his cabinets, his books and knick-knacks, were all as the child's mind had left them, only not as low. Harou was a bit taller now. The young man came around to the other side of the table, and tentatively moved the bottle aside soundlessly. A mixture of disgust and consternation broiled in his veins: the red, carrying his anger, and the blue returned the trepidation and grief of his long struggle in that nailed brown vessel. Honestly, he wished the man and his cursed dog were already dead and gone. And the ship—if it could not be burned where it anchored lazily these past twenty-something years, should be sent to the nearest breaking-up-yard this side of the river.

The man stirred again, and with an outstretched hand he searched for the whiskey bottle clumsily, slowly opening his eyes, finding it a very long distance away. As he leaned back and came to, he noticed the young man standing there on his right. After a moment spent in a blink of old grey-blue eyes and a squint, a sudden throw of shock overtook the old man and he stood immediately: "…Harou?"

Met with silence of the coldest kind, the old man uttered, "…Harou—My God, dear boy…I—I searched for _you_… I searched and _searched_—oh, I missed you—Oh Harou, I've _missed_…" The man took a few small steps toward him, and Harou's fist met the man's unshaven, grizzled gray face. Afterward, Harou's knuckles felt almost reclaimed finally as his own; it was a feeling unlike anything else he had ever felt before; a part of him dually regretted it. The poor man had fallen down with the brute force it, and began to stand back up, with one hand on the little wood chair for support. In the heat of the moment, as soon as the shot was clear, Harou hit the man again in the same place with temperance again cooling his head after a total of two successive hits. "Damn you," Harou heard himself whisper, watching the old man rise against the north wall. "Damn you," Harou said a second time, louder.

"Harou…" the old man murmured without malice he would have taken had it happened years ago—"Harou…please, please my dear boy—" he said with something more toward repentance…

"I am not your dear boy!" Harou shouted hotly. "You ignorant, shame-faced bastard!" he spat, and his young frame suddenly tensed.

"Harou—please: I missed you, look, please look, there, in the closet…"

Tight and immobile, the fifteen year old had to overcome a mountain of emotion to move in the direction of that dammed dark hold. Tentatively, he held the handle, and the solid door panels moved on their old brass hinges; the darkness lightened under the heavy sea coats and blankets, and there laying atop two blue blankets was a tawny brown stuffed bear, with two brown eyes and a stitched brown smile…

"I—After…After you left…I bought that…" the old man's voice went dry like a sailor out of breath in need of water, "I w-wanted to give it to you, when I could find you, and bring you back…I wanted, to say, I was…sorry."

Harou's eyes were already wide; staring at the young bear was nearly like staring at himself, stuffed with his raw emotions.

He thought he would always remember the moment he fled, moving past the table on the west side, past the man, nearly tumbling over the steps, tripping on the deck, jumping down off the ropes and onto the dock, nearly breaking his shins in pain, running back south with quickness unheard of in a boy his age, but it faded slowly to a dark and dim haze, illuminated vaguely four hours later when his captain rose and found the young man beginning to give way finally to some real and restful sleep outside the inn walls…"Did you find a lead?" Harou opened his eyes as if he'd slept for one second only, "Harou?" Karada asked again as the young man sat upright from his fetal position. "Or did the cockroaches drive you out here?"

The older man must have known—he _had_ to have known, Harou thought with paranoia. If he did not, stupidity would be added to his resume that had exhibited none prior: "No, sir…"

"Did you have some unfinished business?" the Senju knelt down on his knees, looking at the boy calmly.

Harou hesitated: "Yes, sir…" he answered shamefully also.

Karada took a moment to consider. And then, he smiled, warm and genuine like the morning sun that was dubiously clouded that morning: "From the moment I saw you, Harou," he began, "I knew you were special. There are such people and such men without bloodline traits, but with something far more precious: they are men of honor, and men of courage. Those are the only two requirements of a true shinobi. Every man owns these words in their hearts, and like time and river smoothes stones in the riverbed, as we age, we are proved and revealed by these words. I do not expect so much maturity from you Harou as you try to exude. Every man has one thing, one experience that challenges him, or changes him. But always remember that you have a choice. You may carry these burdens with you, whatever they may be, or chose to let them pass on, down the current where they belong. That is the gauntlet we face. Even I am plagued sometimes by my decisions, but they were mine to make, and I have no regrets. I have tried to, at length, to learn others of my failings," _Failing?_ The man paused here and ensnared in his probing coal-black, secretly sensory eyes, Harou had to say, "But sir, you have had no failings."

"Perhaps seldom in the battlefield, but in personal life, they abound. No one is infallible Harou, not even me. Never let a man convince you he is. And never let a man tell you what to do. The decisions are yours—the life is yours to make of it what you will," Karada smiled. "When you are older, it will become easier. In the meantime, I wish you might tell me what has you so troubled—I knew you were the reserved kind when I saw, but I respect your silence. I am not _that_ sort of Senju…"

.

The following morning, Karada offered down a nickel or two for the local paper, and as he walked out with his nose first over the local political cartoon, Harou noticed the obituaries on the back, and after seeing the pictures, a lone name without as much caught his eye. Karada stopped from interest, and so did Harou: it was the old man…

…found dead by his friends the previous afternoon…

He was a seaman, but not a sailor. For the past twenty-seven years he lived in dry dock aboard his ship, the past fifteen of which with his trusted friend, his dog…

Harou skimmed over the horrific words until he came to the cause of death; '_sudden'_…it did not elaborate how…

Sensing sudden shock of turmoil powerful enough to unnerve even a bijuu, Karada glanced down as the boy lost his wits and gasped tearlessly though his eyes were wet: "Oh my God," he murmured, "No!"

"…Harou," Karada closed the paper, and then he unfolded the back, noticing the three pictures and one name—too recent for a photo. "Harou…?" Karada continued, dropping the article at his side, "What is the matter?"

Harou bit his lip and held his breath. He turned away out of shame and horror.

"What has happened?" Karada continued simply.

The fifteen year old looked up, and then he shook his head furiously, blubbering after a moment: "I am not—I have not what you say," he said sorrowfully, "I have no honor, no courage—I am—a killer."

A smile cracked across the Senju's face. "Harou," he said dismissively, "You are no such thing."

"I am!" the boy cried passionately, "I am not what you seek!" Harou turned to flee, but his better judgment stopped him. If he should bail out now from his duties, it would be a dishonor so large, so soon, it would break him, and yet he wanted to up and leave that very second, run in any direction, gallop long and hard until he lost himself in whatever scenery there was. "Harou," the Senju said calmly, walking forward to place a cement block of hand over his shoulder, further cementing the boy, rooted in place, "I do not know what you have seen, but I believe your innocence."

So bewildered, Harou could only turn his head and stare with wide hazel eyes—a curtain of tears shielded them. "I do," Karada smiled. "And you better believe in it as well. For you have the makings of a man of infinite promise, and goodness. I believe you incapable of murder, and capable of forgiveness, for whatever you think you may have done."

The way the words were spoken instilled some fragile calm in the boy that made him no longer want to run, but instead, walk. Harou's eyes darted downward, but he did not argue the point. Instead, he lived the rest of the day in a trance and tizzy, following Karada west and wherever the man heralded.

.

Two days later, with no luck at all concerning their captain's quest, Harou and the Senju were waiting the remainder of the time along the river line, waiting for the Aburame and the two other shinobi.

The river looked teal and brown as always, dotted with vessels on either shore, flanked by the green grass and willow trees. He remembered so little of his home country now besides this sight and the distant memory of the tall yellow wheat grass his father grew around the home long since gone. His father too, had ended much the same way as the old man did now, but his father had chosen to take his own life. Harou remembered Sanyu found out the history, and the missing child picture, enough to make him speak for the first time in over a year since leaving the old man's vessel. The fifteen year old was not feeling so well now, so he sat on the short grass near Karada's shadow. And it seemed the Senju knew what he was thinking: "Very different from Konoha," he said, with the humid air pressing every living thing under the hot sun. The memory of the cool air under the shade of those tall trees reminded Harou exactly of what Karada was missing. "Still," he said with an air of fairness cutting the heat, "Sometimes I wouldn't mind living out the rest of my days out on the wide open water." Instinctively Harou knew there were a multitude of different lifestyles attached to a wide-eyed fantasy such as that. "Would you, sir?" Harou asked inquisitively.

"I would."

Thirty years of lunacy and experience spoke to Harou the Senju man might make it. A resolution like his could take on a bijuu. Harou, however, could not.

A minute later, Harou recognized a vessel sailing down the river, a long-running ferry service set apart by a bright blue mast with a circular symbol of grass, leaf, and taki, where the captain escorted passengers to and from. If Harou could remember vaguely, his brother was a railroad man with his own thriving business north in tsuchi—the two were from there. Then Harou noticed someone, a ninja, jumping over the side, landing atop the water. It was neither Tsutomu nor Nagira, nor was it Kanae: the tall and agile form of Nakano Sanyu came into view and Harou stood immediately just as Karada turned. "Sanyu," Harou murmured, and as the ninja came ashore, the young man smiled, "Hello Harou. I hoped I would find you here…Pray, sir, might I steal away Harou for a few minutes? This is…a personal matter."

"Of course," the Senju nodded.

"I was just thinking about you…" Sanyu and Harou walked aside across the tufts and clumps of grass, walking near an old withered peach tree. "Harou," he began, "I had a message to run to one of the Senju men stationed over here, and then I stayed overnight at a tavern on the west side, just last night, and I could not believe it, but I heard one of the men say your name," The young man's eyes widened as the other young man, twenty-five, continued, "It was about a will," he said with a mixture of solemnity and irony; "It seems your name is in another one… That man, the one you ran away from when you were younger—he died. And apparently…he's left everything, to you."

After a moment, the fifteen year old turned, and then out of sudden heart and humidity, he gasped as if he needed air—Sanyu tried to help him with a hand on his shoulder, "Harou, it's—it's all right, there is no need…" Sanyu looked up as a shadow taller than his own further grayed the scene: "Is it about the old man?" the Senju asked quietly—Harou, for shock, could not hear.

Sanyu nodded, "He's left him…his fortune."

.

"You will not burn it."

Karada never said such a thing to him, but Harou could only hear as much in his mind of the man's cool and deep logical tone. It was almost funny how the voice became like a little conscience in his young mind already. In truth, the Senju man continued silence on the matter as majority, allowing Harou and Sanyu to make the decisions. And in the end, Harou won out. "I will take care of it, in my own way." The impulsiveness of youth was prevalent to guide him to commit such a foolish act. But it was said Karada's team was a band of fool-hardy fools, so Harou was in good company. Alone and armed with a back pocket kunai he had no intention of using on this civilian's mission, Harou walked into the tavern alone, seeing Yoshizawa, bottle handy, Inoue sitting alone on the left, and on the far right was Yotente Kawazu, who noticed the new arrival faster than Inoue, since Inoue was prone to lengths of reticence. If Harou could have chosen, if would have just been Inoue and the old man every Wednesday night for cards…

Harou walked right in, and having gathered all the grit he could, laid down a hundred dollar bill right on the counter. The bartender even did not notice the amount of currency until the young man began to speak, "A hundred dollars. To the man who would steer Haya—'s _Kiyonami _to the breaking-up-yard."

The three familiars gasped collectively in disbelief, while the others, more shady tenants of the bar room caught good interest.

"Who the fuck are you?" Burst Yoshizawa, and Kawazu, to the right of him narrowed his eyes, "You're…Hey now, you're the kid with that shinobi fellow—where's Haya—'s dog to scare you off now…"

"Who are you?" Yoshizawa said again hotly.

The temptation to say 'the little boy stuck in the closet' was great, but Harou over came it some how. "No one of your concern. Any one for a hundred dollars?" Harou took a good look around the room. After a silence of rustling shirts and the ticking of a loud clock over the door, Harou pulled out another bill of the same denomination. "Two hundred dollars," he said nearly fearlessly. "Take the _Kiyonami_ to the breaking-up-yard the north side of Satsuma."

"Who the fuck are you?" Yoshizawa asked a third time, standing waveringly, grabbing Harou's blue collar underneath his gray vest.

"Yeah…who in the hell do you think you are, little boy?" Kawazu said. "You've got some damn never, tramping over Haya—san's memory like this. He was a good _man_."

"Oh really?" Harou burst emotionally as only a young man could do, "He was sick, and twisted in ways none of you three could not even begin to suspect of him. As inheritor of his assets, it was all I could not to burn the damn thing where it _stands_."

Yoshizawa released his hold slowly while Harou could feel the base of his neck once more.

"Oh…" Kawazu cut in, "So _you_…are…"

Yoshizawa growled and barked louder yet, "You little bastard!" he shouted, "You lie!" he announced, "You—"

"No sir I do not," Harou glared at him hardly.

"Are you related to the old man?" Inoue spoke up.

"No sir, I am not," Harou glanced at him. "Two hundred dollars. I cannot believe there is not a man in here who would grab at such money for an easy task. Besides which, whoever volunteers will _keep_ the salvage money…"

"I will," A man stood up from his seat, and Harou felt relieved, "Half now, half later," he said to him, and the man took the money and immediately without delay, set out the door.

"I can't believe you," Kawazu uttered in bewilderment.

"Why not—you said you were a firm believer in karma in front of Haya—. I believe all three of you exercised it when you were drunk enough to storm city hall in the middle of the night, and were nearly busted when that little bitch made too much noise."

"…How do you know about that?" Kawazu uttered.

"Idiot—" Inoue uttered, "You just gave that one away, you did."

The bartender shook off the shock of the scene, "Secret's safe with me boys…"

"Take your money and go," Inoue suggested suddenly. We have said goodbye to Haya— in proper."

"But the ship—!" Yoshizawa and Kawazu started.

"It is his property now." Inoue said.

"Thank you," said Harou.

"Do not thank me. May you only have forgiveness in your heart and shame in your little head. Despite what you may have known of him, Haya— was a good friend to me, and did me no wrong."

After a silence, in which he could have said anything he wanted, anything at all Harou picked up the rest of his money, and fled.

He followed the river line, a distance behind the _Kiyonami_, until he felt the panic in him rise, reviewing the conversation he had with the old man's trio of friends. Inoue's words haunted him. …Forgiveness! Forgiveness! "Matte…" he murmured, "Wait…" Harou boarded the ship without the sailor's knowledge, only the dog's, who was exiting herself sick with the motions of the vessel, and the young fifteen year old headed down to the state room, where it was nearly as empty as a hollow log. The old man's dog pranced all around Harou frantically. With difficulty, Harou went over, and he opened the door to the closet, seeing the brown bear sitting there with it's stuffing under skin. Harou stared at it for a long time…before he moved it.

.

Twenty-four hours later, Harou rendezvoused with his captain. Nagira offered him a cynical brow Harou understood now was issued not from dislike of him, but dislike of secrets. But Harou was not ready to cough up the ordeal, and Karada forged onward almost as if it had never happened.

.

Three years later, the young man was eighteen.

He'd gone home on break from the Senju's cell he liked well enough, and that 'home' was the family who had found him, by divine Providence. If he had not been found by the Nakano man, he would have lied dead on the Konoha side long ago. The family, the small little finished family Harou had grown to love very much in his quiet way, after nearly nine years since running from that hard river line due west. He could still remember arriving on the opposite shore, shocked to find he made it alive, and scared out of his wits, he ran. When he could not run, he walked. Back then, he had not known which direction he was coming or going, only that he desperately needed to distance himself from the demon dog and that twisted old man… He was young enough to have the innate paranoia his trail would somehow glow in the dark and tell in the day: he pushed himself to keep moving, leaving his young little frame in tatters on the other side. Western Konoha.

A farmer found him, when he had not the strength to go any further, nor to open his eyes, and the man carried the boy back with him, and took him in. Upon waking on a warm bed, it was a paralyzing fear from shock that took him over, the kind that overcame incrementally with small advances on his part to take what was offered to him. Since he had not really remembered what a woman was, he came around to her company first, instead of the man, or their own exuberant gray dog he still to this day did not indulge with touch. He did not trust any of them for the longest time, and he spoke not one word for an entire year. Gradually, the nine year old got his strength back, and gradually, he finally accepted the husband and wife, but not before attempting to run away one last time, ending in futility.

The husband and wife were empty nesters—the older girl was gone and married already at the time, and the younger, the boy, had just left to be shinobi. For a year he stayed there on that little farm nestled within a great forest before they knew anything about him; his name, his age; birthplace. The woman taught him math and reading, writing and history, and after a while, the young boy helped the man in the afternoons and evenings, grooming the horse he learned to ride, drying dishes, raking, weeding, sowing. Sadako, the wife, loved the boy very much. The fact that he did not speak (for they knew he was capable when he shrieked upon seeing their dog for the first time) did not sit well with Mr Nakano. But Sadako was patient enough for both of the men however, and extraordinarily kind, treating the boy like a second son like mothers can do. The couple did not know the young man's name until Sanyu returned, went back out, and returned home again, having come across, by chance, a missing person's flyer from Kusa. From there boy made his first verbal entreaty not to be sent back until the woman broke the news to him that shortly after his original disappearance, his father had committed suicide.

The boy sequestered himself in bed, ravaged by uncontrollable fear and anxiety. Soon becoming absolutely sick with the memory, it took him two days to confess the truth, his only truth to Sadako and her husband present. His scars came not from his father, but from the old skipper. "I did run away, from my father's house," he said weakly, "My mother was going to have a baby girl, but she died, giving birth. My father…did not take it well," he finished quietly.

"And…your sister?"

Harou merely shook his head. "I ran…I did not think I'd be gone long—long enough for him to love me again, but then the skipper—his dog, found me…He…" Harou did not finish, enough of that was out now to trigger a cascade of bitter calm within his thin frame.

It explained why the child hated dogs, hated water, and was weary of gray-haired men, at the least. And as Sanyu stayed home in the remaining days of his leave, he offered to teach the young Harou Nekai chakra control and taijutsu: how to defend himself. "How would it feel, to go back there someday, when you're ready of course, and have the ability to defend yourself?"

Harou did not have to think twice.

Harou missed the lessons after Sanyu left, so he continued on his own, whenever he had the time. Then, just after his fifteenth birthday, despite the uneasiness he felt going away from the home, he followed in Sanyu's steps under his care before he caught the eye of Karada himself.

So three years later, after having been back to the river line and lived, he was back here once again, to visit, to rest, to remember the love and kindness he found from two very warm people before Karada would search again.

Every three to four years, the Senju man accepted new students, new members; however one chose to see it. Each had to spar with the Aburame man. And sometimes, as Harou understood, there were many, many hopefuls, but often times, according to Tsutomu, "…none are chosen at all."

Sadako raised her brow curiously. "Really?"

Harou nodded quietly. The Aburame was too strong, and dearest Kanae considered the whole thing the greatest and most supreme honor of his life.

.


	3. No Lights After Dark, But for the Stars

Chapter 3  
_**No Lights After Dark, But For the Stars…**_

.

.

After less than a week, Harou summoned himself alone with the others to a certain spot in Konoha, where the woods were unfailingly deep, and ghostly, silently dark. Standing as a collective by day, when the night came they stood alone, occupied by the tenants of owls and bats, mice and snakes, on the ground. There, at dusk or dawn, the leaves fell unseen like whispers under the thick canopies, audible only to any listening man's mind, speaking in any tongue, speaking in any paranoia, and every kind of fear; of forgotten names and places, it could recall them all, and the twigs that would break meant one were lost under the frantic snaps of the heart and it's wild beat. Here were the woods so dark, green, and leaf-filled, no human could make his home but for one man, and that was Karada.

His home was in a maze to find, but a thousand acres of it were his, in addition to his home with his wife and young children just east of Tanzaku he seldom visited. There was only one large clearing, and one winding trail in these woods, and the path led to it. This clearing was where Harou and the others, Tsutomu, Nagira, Kanae, and another young man, Odayo, positioned themselves to await the arrivals.

By noon, the men were showing reasonably well, and it was Harou's job to write down the names on the clipboard in hand, the purpose was to keep track of the repeats, and the ones who never tried again. There were three repeats who showed, and finally, until Harou was about to call the showing over, a certain young man came along into the forest with a face of boyish wonder, treading lightly on the thick carpet of brown leaves and twigs, trying not to make a sound…"Name?"

"Ryouma, Saru-Shin," he looked up with dark eyes.

Harou looked down after a dumb second and saw the white-haired young and short man standing there, "E-Excuse me…?"

"Ryouma, Saru-Shin. Is this the Senju's cell? Karada-sama? Is there still time?"

"Um—yes," said Harou, scratching down the name before he forgot something so unique and nearly idiotic.

The fighting commenced in order of application. There were sixteen men, mostly in their twenties who believed they had the skill and brawn necessary to ally themselves with such a powerful and mysterious freelance figure as Karada, who was watching from a distance, hidden from the trees. The three repeats fought well, but none again were able to surpass the powerful Aburame. But the Senju found one of he men, the youngest of which, had had a healthy change in spirit with his funny smile across his face the instant he failed. Karada stepped in and congratulated him: he was what Karada was looking for. The young man, Chokichi, would be trained under Tsutomu, still partnered with old Nagira. Besides him, no one else came close to winning, or losing with spirit.

Finally, the last applicant, Ryouma Saru-Shin, stood up from a brown log when Harou called his full name in such an unfamiliar tone, that even Karada took notice of his slight disdain. Saru stepped up front and center without a flinch, but with a small sparkle in his young ebony eyes paired with an odd stripe of red on either corner. The man who called himself 'Monkey Heart' was no more than fifteen years old, and as sure as the stars that were blinded above by the sun, Harou believed without a shadow of a doubt the young boy would fail like all the rest. Karada walked around to be beside his youngest apprentice, just as the eighteen year old nodded his head for the two to begin. "Harou," Karada said lightly, being in the light a second time himself, "Do you not approve of this young man?"

Harou flinched from the pointed question as he watched the Aburame take out his black kunai: Saru had none. All he had was a small pocketknife with a long blade, and even that looked so brown and old, it might fall apart any passing second. He showed it openly without secrets, and bended his knees, ready for Kanae's offensive. Really, the young man reminded Harou of a bright-eyed child, glowing with hope and no preconceptions. The eighteen year old was about to say something when Saru suddenly caught Kanae's thrown blade mid air, and it looked as if he were about to spin it when he let the blade catch in his hand where he looked at it curiously like a child would with an object he had never seen before. Saru-Shin suddenly picked up a tiny beetle that had been crawling on the black hilt. Harou gasped for a second or two, open mouthed, and Saru knelt down and let the small bug walk onto the low-lying green fern.

The Aburame, too, had never witnessed such a sight, and stood there also, open mouthed with his shades on. He looked behind him for Karada, in sudden, unexpected question of what to do: "…Shall we continue?" he asked dubiously.

Karada gave a quick, discreet nod of his head.

So the pair continued. Monkey leapt and flew and jumped sideways and all ways, up and down and back again, evading the bugs as best he could as Harou had done three years ago. And Harou watched all of this with sudden intrigue and even a little growing envy. It was not the jealously of weird skills, but of manners: the boy who called himself Monkey Heart seemed so carefree, young, and innocent, like he were a daisy picked fresh upon the field and stuck in a country vase; nothing else had tainted or touched that precious long journey. It was almost as if he had spent his whole childhood…laughing. Harou had known no such man in his life before. And as the minutes passed, and though Saru-Shin ultimately failed against the Aburame, he was _exactly_ what the Senju was looking for, without the slightest mention of doubt, "You are a man of infinite promise, and goodness," Karada smiled to the boy as the Aburame helped him up off the ground, putting away his kunai. "That is what one man once said to me, and now I return it. Ryouma Saru-Shin, I admit you into this team, if you will accept."

After a bewildered pause, Ryouma nodded, "I-I do—Yes."

"Good," Karada smiled. "Then tomorrow we begin again. Take a rest."

Chokichi followed Tsutomu and Nagira; Kanae followed Karada in the direction of his décor-less cabin, and Harou, after handing the clipboard to the latter, was left to watch over their little winded Monkey.

"So…" began Harou awkwardly, "How old are you…?"

"Fifteen."

Harou's left brow raised in astonishment.

"How old are you?" Saru returned unassumingly, with a friendly smile.

"Eighteen. And already, I feel as if I am getting too old for this."

Saru smiled, and Harou felt something so damn peculiar about it as if he would see it regularly, for the next decade and then some. "So, what do we do now?" Monkey asked him curiously.

Harou's first inclination was to imitate Karada and then leave him there, but considering he was left with Saru-Shin on purpose, Harou had to reconsider. He knew his bias was wrong against the little country boy, and yet Harou could not get over this judgment of him. "Are you Konoha native?"

"Yes," Ryouma nodded.

"Well," Harou thought, "Then, let's go," he led him along the trail, that led of the forest on the east side, and in a perfect voice of a child, young and green Saru-Shin asked, "Where?"

At that point, Harou was beginning to have a vague inclination of why the young man was called 'Monkey Heart', whether by forces of nature, or the twisted old souls who raised him. But the question left Harou with small smile toward the young man, "Which part are you from?" he continued.

"Oh, just south of here, a ways… near a small town called Midori, that's south of Shiga, and we're north-west of Nobu…do you know it?"

"No."

"Oh—What about you?"

"West of here; actually just north of Shiga, west, quite near Kusa's border."

The trail was small as it was also misleading, as other tightly small deviations curled off it from the paths of deer and other small animals. Harou led Saru-Shin without further question for nearly a half mile before there was an obvious fork in the path. "Which side…?" asked the new student. Harou turned him left, "This way," and began to think again. "What should we call you?" Harou wondered aloud. "Ryouma? Saru?"

"Everyone just calls me Saru."

"Ah."

"What do they call you?"

"Harou Nekai."

"Oh, hello…May I ask," Saru said, "How long have you served with Karada-sama?"

"Three years," Harou answered shortly.

"Oh…so…you must have been the same age as me," he remarked lightly with a smile, but Harou remained silent ahead of him. "Um—did you have to fight Aburame-san?"

"Yes."

"Oh. Did you win?"

"No," said Harou quietly. "I didn't."

"But, Karada accepted you on other grounds."

"Yes, he did. And he does. So long as a man is…"

"…'Of infinite promise, and goodness'…Is that it? But how can he tell?"

"…I do not know," Harou said with difficulty, "But he has his means."

"So…" Saru continued after a moment, "Where did you say we were going?"

Harou smiled suddenly, and decided to have some fun with this annoying person: "Every new member, as an act of pure and genuine loyalty, must summon the six rings of Ibawasa, and the eight rings of Zon. I am taking you to Hell."

After a moment, when Harou glanced behind him, he could see Saru-Shin had a grin across his boyish face that told him real or imaginary, he would have done it. The phrase 'oh dear' would not leave Harou Nekai's lips. He knew Saru-Shin would be stuck in the Senju's cell for a good long while, assuming Harou had the spine and heart to stand with them.

.

The boy named Monkey and the man named Karada got along well together as if they were water and rain. Even Nagira warmed to the boy far better than he ever did with Harou at the same age, which Nekai did not take surprise to, nor was it resentment, but continued awe and envy. And even at that age, Saru was still greener than tsuchi moss on the north side of a grey boulder after an early morning's rain, for he had no resume whatsoever: no records, no missions, and no knowledge of real ninjutsu, a shade of green truer than Harou. None of that mattered to the Senju though, nor anyone else for that matter. With every passing lesson, white and gray haired Saru-Shin, in a ragged navy blue kimono seemed an honest reincarnation of the Monkey King himself: Sun WuKong.

The legend was so old, it did not carry much weight any longer. Like Rikudou sennin, it was a good story to tell small children late at night before bed. It was true, to say the least, but reincarnation or not, this Monkey had human connections like Harou and all the rest, and wouldn't it be a wonder to see that monkey-faced man among the land of the living today…? Karada continued to fuel Harou with annoyance with suggestions like that. "Sun WuKong, a _child_, at that." Karada was proud of him, like a piece of gray agate found in the brown leaves beneath the trees.

One night, roughly six months after his glorious induction into the only lunatic freelance Senju cell of Senju Karada, the tall captain was alone with his two youngest students around a campfire. In a triangle, they sat deep in his woods near his little cabin where the owls hooted and the cicadas screeched in loud rolling whistles around them. Coming back the rest of the way from the border, Karada began the fire with two short sticks and a glowing smile that was enough to begin the high, orange snapping flames. Harou sat on the ground, shuffling through the contents of his duffle pack. Down at the very bottom, he pulled out a small blue blanket, and he inspected it for a moment, to ensure it did not carry spiders or biting beetles or any other small insects from the long trip into Taki and back. Harou noticed Saru-Shin was looking at him; Harou tossed him the throw.

"Thanks," he said gratefully.

Harou nodded, and pulled out the other gray one for himself, shaking that out, too.

"Boys," Karada said as the small fire began to crack and roar, "Would you fetch us a little more firewood? I'd like to have a short story told tonight, if you don't mind."

Immediately Saru-Shin jumped up, "Yes-sir!", and he bounded and trotted off into the forest like the fiery colt he was. Harou calmly followed behind with a weary smile toward his captain Karada took note of. Ten minutes later, they returned with fresh water from the little river near the cabin, and firewood a plenty, stacked high all in Monkey's arms. He set all of it down and Karada took over. Saru then folded his throw in a square like a cushion and took a gulp of water from the canteen before asked, "What kind of story, captain?"

"The kind that makes you think," the Senju smiled warmly, "And the kind that warms your heart and mind. The kind that takes close to twenty years to tell."

Harou looked up suddenly just as he finally sat down after handing back the Senju's canteen. Something in the man's tone was very domineering tonight. Karada leaned back, and Harou re-directed his youthful gaze after the man had so evenly met his own: "Twenty years?" Saru-Shin repeated curiously.

"Well," the Senju said imperfectly, "If it's closer to eighteen, I hope you will not hold me to it."

Harou stared at him now, and Saru-Shin finally began to take notice between the two, there was some discreet, silent communication going on.

A silence filled up the spaces between the three with the roar of the fire now in full bloom and cicadas' long, high-pitched screeching. Harou was awaiting with cold skin, a dismissal: 'Oh, I did not mean you, Harou,' the young man could easily imagine him saying. But the real statement Harou did not look far to find. "Here…" Harou spoke quietly, aiding the captain, "We keep no secrets…"

"It is the rule, or one of the rules of this entire team, and toward comitatus," Karada said with a glitter of small pride in his eyes.

Harou, in the cold forest, suddenly began to feel the heat.

"I could go first, Saru-Shin, you second. I will show you how it's done. As far as I have lived," he cleared his throat, "I have always looked this way," he smiled. "I was born in bed with a woman, the last of two brothers, and three older sisters, and after that, I lived and breathed on land, in forests such as these. They were my home. I started down there, at the trunk, and would climb all the way up there—without chakra. I was restless with energy. And then when I learned, with chakra, I would walk the canopies like a giant while the birds were greatly confused. They didn't much see traffic up there in those days. Still don't. The birds were like my cousins, in the skies, for I never quite fit in with my family in youth.

"As you know now, most of my intimate family have disowned me now. The only one who hasn't is my wife. And the reason why she has not disowned me is because she has never seen enough of me to form an opinion one way or the other," he grinned softly. "But you two do not have wives yet—in that case, Saru, perhaps you will continue—where you grew up, your family, and so on…"

"Oh, well…" Saru said with an air of slow understanding, "Well, my father is a farmer," he said.

Harou looked on his left, and his eyes widened as his teammate continued, "A wheat farmer. Red, yellow, and white—mostly yellow and red—about as far as the eye can see, in any direction. It's near Green Town. I have a younger brother—and mother passed on a while ago," he looked down solemnly, "Our home is near this little ravine with a little creek at the very bottom. Catfish and frogs, and dragonflies, too. I get chased by one every year. I call him _Okii Ryunosuke_, because he's the biggest of them, like he's the king. And I know how kings are with their kingdoms…

"I know every legend—well, most of them this side of the world, and every story an' old song, too, I like music," Monkey smiled. "I like to sing."

"We stand upon no ceremony or customs in this cell, Saru-Shin. We do as we wish."

Harou was in complete shock: who was this fifteen year old anyway? Did he really come here on his own, or did Karada ask him to? Harou shook his head. Monkey was an accident. A very bright and glittering accident waiting to put him out of the cell. That was why Karada suggested the stories. Harou's paranoid mind raced; before this was over, he knew the Senju would banish him forever. Then where would he be? This was the hour of decision.

"Harou," said a deep voice, "What's the matter?" Karada poked at the fire.

Saru looked between them both, as if he shouldn't have said something.

"Sir…" Harou started.

"…Yes?"

"…Now?"

"It's your choice, Harou."

"But—will…Is this it? Will you quit me if I do not tell you a word?"

Karada, with quick and silent shrewdness, did not answer.

"But…But why…? What's the point?" Harou asked like a hopeless child.

"I should think that was obvious," Karada smiled quietly after a cicada's whistle ended. "Comitatus is what I work on. Even if we're blessed lunatics, we're forever optimists—most of us are. I admit, Nagira is a bit like you, at times…Funny story about Nagira," Karada commented absently. "I met him during an assassination. Of course, neither he nor I were murdering anyway, we were both trying to catch the same assassin…" Karada laughed heartily—Monkey grinned.

Meanwhile quiet pause was spent in deliberation for Harou Nekai.

Karada glanced at him.

Harou conceded…and told his history, giving up the secret admission, "I—I was born…in Kusa, sir," he uttered uneasily, hoping the secret would stay there. Harou could feel Saru-Shin gazing at him too. Harou stared into the fire, continuing thus from there, glancing at Saru-Shin, "My father…was…just like yours…"

.

Very early the next morning, as the three were finishing packing up to leave, the Senju first asked Saru-Shin aside, and once out of earshot from a weary and somber Harou, the Senju said, "Saru-Shin, I have a great favor to ask of you. In this short amount of time, you have come so far beyond any expectation. I am extremely proud of you," he smiled warmly. "You are the best student in all my time of leading this cell to show such promise and compassion. You may bear the feelings like Harou carries, whether it be loss or cruelty, but you have chosen to continue grasping for hope. I admire optimists. I regard them very well. No one else knows this Saru-Shin, so please kept this secret of my own: I am a sensory. A very strong one. I can tell when men lie, and how. You have never given me a wrong answer, but Harou has, over the course of the past few years.

"You and he… are extraordinarily similar, extremely similar," he repeated with awe, "and yet you are the most opposite ends of each other like fire is to water, and wind to the earth. I ask of you a great favor young man. Will you stand beside him? And will you help him, in ways I cannot?"

"Yes sir," Ryouma smiled. "Yes. I can."

"Good. I cannot thank you enough," he said. "I will tell you something else. Since you both are so opposite like north and south, Harou too was fifteen when I met him. And he too failed the Aburame—though not half so gracefully as you did. He was the kind of someone, with a hard exterior that I do not normally take the time to break, because by the time it does crack open, the walnut inside is usually all black and brown, and cannot grow. But despite the hatred and pain I knew was hidden deeply within his heart, I took him on. He is the only one of that kind I have ever accepted. For almost four years now, he told me not where he came, or who his family was. He was destined to be defined by duty, and not by character. I have been trying to change that in him, and I still do not know exactly how well a job I'm doing. I think I have pulled him away from the ledge, but I believe that in time, you will be able to help him much more than I can. I think he likes you, Saru. I really do. He is jealous of you, but he likes you. He is not all bad," Karada smiled. "Let this be our little secret, Saru-Shin."

"…My father called me that," said Saru when he finished, "When I was younger. I used to pull pranks and things—I never fit in," he admitted, "Anywhere I went…Thank _you_, sir, for everything."

"Saru-Shin…how did a boy like you, with no background," Karada said after a moment inquisitively, "Seek out this cell specifically? You could have easily joined Hashirama's men and get a solid contract from the village. Why freelance?"

"I heard from the others…" Ryouma bit back a smile, "That your cell…was different."

Karada smiled warmly, "Oh I am sure they must have told you many things to raise your suspicions…"

Almost immediately after, before the trio headed out finally, Karada gently pulled his former youngest student aside, "A word, Harou," he said simply, and once out of earshot from Saru-Shin, the Senju spoke clearly, "Harou…will you not look at me today?" Karada folded his arms under a small and simple smile. "I cannot have a student who will not look up—you will forever bump into things. Nagira would not appreciate that."

Harou maintained his almost sullen stare upon the ground. Silence engulfed his being after speaking so much last night.

"…I'm very proud of you, Harou, for finally confessing to me what you did," Karada said, "I know it was not easy for you, and Harou…you still have a long way to go. Kusa…the memory of Kusa will be with you for a long time. I know you continue to carry the darkness in your heart you believe you cannot erase. Your nature does not permit you, I know. But perhaps someday, with more time, a wife and family, you will be able to let go, " he said with a short wink of smile, "You are not alone, young man. I got this scar," Karada pointed under his left eye, "In childhood, from the blade of an Uchiha. Do I hate the hand, or the heart that told the hand to strike? Neither. His hatred, I later understood, was not toward me, but toward my clan, toward the hatred that has existed between us and united us in strife and conflict for more than a century. We must all seek our answers within ourselves. There is more to life than that hatred; there is forgiveness, absolution, redemption, and even peace. Peace of mind. Take heart from someone who went through it a little older than you are now. I chose you to be on my team because I saw in you what I saw in myself at your age. I did not want to be young either. I wanted it to pass. And I was told the Uchiha were bad. Bringers of chaos. And we, the Senju, were the orderly ones; pillars, like the trees, of justice and structure. Until one day I realized, I did not want the chaos…and I did not want the order. I wanted freedom. I learned that the choice was not to choose at all, and I set a new course for myself. After so many years of hatred, who could say who began what? Who says it must continue? Now you see why I am considered the lunatic of the family."

"Harou," he continued after a pause, "You and Saru-Shin are remarkably similar, you know that. It's almost uncanny. However, you are also very opposite in nature, I grant you that," the Senju smiled. "But now I ask you for a great favor, Harou. I ask you to watch over Saru-Shin. I ask you to guide him and to teach him ninjutsu, everything you know, and the skills necessary to survive out here, but above all, I ask you to _protect_ him, whenever I am unable to do so. Would you do this?"

Slowly, after a moment, Harou nodded his head. "Yes—I will. I promise," he said, looking the tall man in the eyes. "I swear it."

"Good. You will not regret it."

.

Nagira was off with business in the south with Kanae, and before Tsutomu left to join them, he warned Karada of the lunacy he might be conspiring. "I'm serious," he said when he was normally reticent, and did not bother, "I know Iyadomi helped us—helped you get established through the Gifu land contracts, but this could start a war. I would fight for you as much as the next man in front of that bastard Wa— Chitose, but this is something even beyond you. Besides, Saru and Harou are still so young, yet. I don't know if I would push them that far, so soon. There's only three of you."

It was in March, and Monkey was almost eighteen, and Harou was twenty-one. "I want you to know," Karada told them each, "You can either accept, or decline this mission." Karada said. "Accept!" Monkey raised his right hand as the trio sat together in the triangle. Harou smiled a small smile of resignation, "If he's in, I'm in."

Karada nodded, and explained the plan.

.

Eleven hours later, the news finally hit the wires.

.

He would not ask this until after he, his captain, and the girls reached the other side of the border, and into the dark pine forest of her province where they stopped at a rendezvous point for Harou near one of the oldest trees standing above the brown leaves and red pine needles, "Are you all right?"

Keiko stood after a moment and after a slight rush of a tremble in her body when Saru suddenly doubted the promptness of such a question, she nodded, "Nothing…irreversible I cannot come over…"

"…Oh," Monkey said softly.

Tentatively, Akeno nodded with wide brown eyes when Keiko glanced at her.

"We are going to wait here," Karada explained to the two young women, "For the third member of my team. Then we shall escort you ladies home."

"Thank you," Keiko said, heartfelt, with a smile. Saru lowered his pack, and pulled out the two wraps Harou normally carried, and he offered one to each.

"Thank you," Keiko said again, smiling, and Saru believed he'd seen a small sparkle come back into her dark brown eyes.

Covered in dirt or not, she was the most beautiful woman—princess, Saru-Shin had ever seen: a head of raven's black hair, dancing, shimmering, almond shape eyes, glittering with brown in the center, pure white skin, and swift, black, arched brows. Her clothes were torn in places from being shoved around, and grass stains were on the knees of her navy skirt, but still she remained intact, with even that regal air about her, and her aide, too, orange and curly-haired, she was still shaken from the experience of being held captive. Together, she and Akeno had been overseeing relief efforts being brought into the northern province after an outbreak of sickness had plagued the residents, in addition to the some of the strictest standards of dictatorship tsuchi had seen yet. The people were starving, primarily for liberty. And against her father's knowledge, Keiko wanted to help them. Without more tactical means, she and her assistant were soon captured by the daimyo's forces and charged with spying. The opposite lord went so far as to declare any further act by the south or her sister nations would be considered an act of war 'with immediate and swift retaliation' consequently.

Karada heard of this, and Iyadomi being a friend, Karada staged the rescue himself.

It was another two long hours before Harou Nekai returned.

"Sorry…" he apologized, "Had to take the long way around…"

.

Saru-Shin sat back, bodily tried, and thoroughly exhausted against the trunk of an old brown tree, and Harou was already falling asleep on the ground under the dark canopy of tress and pines in tsuchi. The place was near an old abandoned palace of woods and fallen gray walls near a river Keiko informed the men would find rest there. Despite Saru-Shin's want for sleep, his mind was wandering and buzzing with images of the sordid camp, the mud, the men, and the oppressive grey sky, and the look on Miss Iyadomi's face when she saw him. It was a wash of relief, a downpour of spirit, and a victory for hope. Orange haired Akeno began to cry when Saru told her he was there to rescue them. He didn't think he'd really be saving princesses and damsels in distress as a living, but here he was, under a dark and silent night in the land of earth, having returned them home safe and sound. Beside him, Harou began to cough. He had the dry throat ever since he arrived at the rendezvous.

Saru sat upright and looked him over, "Harou?" he said quietly.

Harou said a muffled, "What?"

"Are you all right?"

He made a non-committal noise, which turned into another stomach-sickening cough. "Fine."

This opened an eye on Karada, who had found an old oak twelve feet away with a large old branch, "Did you catch the fever, Harou?"

"There's…fever…that comes with it?" Harou craned his neck to look up, "Ah, hell…" he murmured to himself. "Just my luck."

Saru's smile vanished slowly.

.

They were together again. He and Saru-Shin, eight months later, after an excursion to a water island, a Kumo mountain, and other assorted lofty, hidden, faraway places across oceans and valleys—deep in the middle of a dark forest on the north side of Tanzaku town, treading lightly between cool breezes wafting near the tall, old leafed trees. They were paired, with four other such couples in total: they were only ten men, besides Karada. Saru-Shin had never really fought a war before, and even Harou had limited experience, save Karada's simple rule: "Do not get killed." And Monkey smiled, "That is just like him."

Harou grimaced. "He's serious about it Monkey, don't you dare take any chances. This is serious. Grave as that time in tsuchi, and this…" he trailed quietly.

"I know."

Harou bit his lip, wondering if he really did.

.

Two months later, Saru-Shin was sitting near him on an old, rotted tree stump, deep in the same forest, having stood their ground against the enemy _ukenin_. There were twenty-seven others like Harou, though most had never served under Karada, but with other, saner Senju who had left them there, and they were all laid up in hammocks between the trees. There were no doctors, no medical facilities, just the trees themselves, standing each tall and silent to produce what shade and care they could. There was only one other able man besides Saru-Shin, and there was one woman, a simple nurse, who had traveled all the way from Tanzaku upon hearing about the request for medical assistance. She was a civilian nurse, and did not know medical ninjutsu. They were lucky to have her.

Karada was gone. Like forty some others, he was one of the bodies under a blanket on the ground, waiting for some Senju relative to return him home. Saru would have done it himself were he not needed to look after his fellow men. Such came the job as he was still able-bodied; tried and extraordinarily weary, but able.

The only other man to survive along with him and still stand was Kanae, the Aburame. And even he was having to take more rests and sit downs lest he fell over from his malignant fever. Something about the bugs, Saru-Shin did not understand, could not heal the rest of him quickly—Kanae did not bother to explain it to him. Saru had no fever. All he had was anxiety for those men he could not help now anyway. The burns, the blade marks, the broken bones; all of which had to now heal on their own; they had done all they could. And there was one other feeling Saru carried with him from the south: shock and grief. The former preluded the other in a calm, quiet way until the reality hit him that Karada was gone forever…

It was a rogue cell, and the Senju of the new village had been actively trying to enlist Karada to help them for the past few months to Harou's understanding. Made up of a ninja from the north, Kumo, the land of mist—the water island, and others, Saru still could not accept it, but their strength was totally invincible, unlike anything Saru-Shin had ever seen before. And Lord—were there a lot of them—too many…! The memory haunted him, and infuriated him. If only he had been stronger, he might have been able to…

Saru looked up and thought he'd seen Harou begin to stir. It would be the first time since Kanae found him, lying in a spot of blood the size of a man's shadow near noon—he was not faring well. They managed to bind his lower waist tight enough to stop the bleeding, but it seemed, with each passing hour, they were simply too late. Kanae was in no position to donate, and Saru and the nurse both could not give with Harou being a shady AB negative. The other resident negatives had all lost blood of their own without offering any to spare. So, it left him alone.

Saru continued to wait for something—hope or someone, chewing his nails anxiously, looking upwards now and then for the stars where the silence encased the dark woods, echoing the cicadas now and then, the crickets, and even owls shifting like ghosts in the leaves above. Saru desperately wanted to hear the sound of a messenger bird, or another doctor, a medic, at least, so badly, more than anything else in the world right then. It wasn't until he noticed the light of the moon high above that he turned around from a sudden cold chill (his vest was underneath some dead man at present) and Saru suddenly saw a young Senju man, slightly out of breath. "Is he here?"

Almost immediately, Saru-Shin nodded and stood. "He is over there," And he led the man near a very wide and old oak, beside which, the thirty-seven year old Senju lie. Kanae had covered him with one of the woman's lightweight sheets she had in her supply pack. The other Senju stood over him in respectful silence. Saru glanced behind himself by chance, and noticed Harou in the hammock, blinking his eyes half open. Almost immediately, Saru galloped over to him. "…Harou! Harou!"

Kanae's ears pricked, and heard the commotion. By the time he limped over, Harou was no longer responding, and Monkey was on the verge of a string of curses he had never heard the young boy say; "There must be someone over there who could spare themselves an ounce!" And the young white-haired man looked at Kanae desperately. "Well…if Tsutomu or Nagira could drop in…" the Aburame trailed. "I know Nagira is…"

"Why?" said the Senju man, "What do you need?"

"AB negative," Saru answered, "Or at least someone with a negative to their name."

"…Karada once saved my life that way," the man began rolling up his navy blue sleeve, "We're all the same."

Kanae bent over and fished through the woman's square folding case she brought and happened to leave near one of the trees Harou was occupying in case they found someone. "Nurse!" the Aburame called, holding the small clear tube in hand.

Soon after the process began, there was a cold quiet that fell over the forest; even all the animal noises faded and all Saru-Shin began to hear was the hot and tense pound of his heart like a hollow drum. He looked at the long-haired Senju man clearly, "Who are you…?" Saru asked meekly.

"Senju Hashirama," he said.

Another silence passed—Saru-Shin could not believe he hadn't known beforehand, and yet he never expected _Hashirama_ to be the one to come running, as he was the leader of the shinobi village. Saru looked away, thinking he should have known, he should have recognized the great elite Senju man. After all, the clan mark was still on his red uniform.

Kanae looked equally surprised. He too had never actually seen the leader in action, being at Karada's side or in some place for him. Many of his fellow clansmen had, joining with the village, began moving themselves there in droves with the rest of the ninja clans, the Hyuuga, the Uchiha, all of which were there now, but Kanae had held out, just as those who vowed their loyalty to Karada. But as far as how close Hashirama was connected with the only lunatic of the family, Kanae could not guess. He was confused. "Why did you…Karada never spoke of you," Kanae said. "Why?"

"Men of peace are often regarded as lunatics," the Senju said simply. "Karada was very guarded over his plans."

"Plans?" Kanae inquired.

"Of unity."

Again, Kanae was bewildered, and Saru was no less surprised.

"Even he wanted to keep some things quiet," Hashirama suggested. "Peace is a very fragile word. Even as we succeed, we must be very strong to continue our bonds."

After a moment, Hashirama looked up, "Is that enough?"

"Um—yes," attended the nurse.

The young Senju man sat down after a moment. He asked for some water, and faster than the real Sun WuKong, Saru-Shin fetched it for him immediately. He returned to see Harou, slowly coming to. "Harou," Saru-Shin smiled with a wave of relief in his heart. "Hey," He watched his partner, back from the abyss, back from even the cold grips of death, look toward him with his brown hazel eyes under his light brown, hazel hair. "You're going to be all right," Monkey said.

He struggled to speak, when he asked if he, Saru, was all right and uninjured.

"We won, Harou," Saru said simply and nodded.

"…Everyone? And Karada? Did you…?" Harou spoke disjointedly.

Finally, it hit him. The grief swelled and came crashing down, eroding the clean white shore as Saru shook his head uneasily, and the tears began to flow over…and he cried.

.


	4. My 'Antonia'

Chapter 4  
_**My 'Antonia'**_

.

.

With a heavy heart did Ryouma Saru-Shin move his body toward south tsuchi a few weeks later. Truthfully, whenever he thought of rain, he could remember each and every single time it would seep in the window on his side (and his side alone) in the little closet size bedroom he and his younger brother shared. His bed was on one side, against the window, and Coushander's on the other, beneath the other small window, with about a foot and a half between and a shared end table directly between. They had no closet, but a tiny dresser each at the foot of their beds where he couldn't even pull the drawers open all the way, there wasn't any room. The space was tiny for two growing boys, and with a hard rain that would come in through the storm window at the top made a miserable scene. So naturally, rain was never quite welcome in his heart because of it's power to invade and rot, and fall on his head. Takeshi, their father, never fixed it well enough to where it would never happen again, and Saru's mother couldn't do anything about it…similar to the way Saru couldn't now.

It began to sprinkle steadily just after he crossed the border. He ran from then on, the grand house was not far. He was thus met at the gates by two smart-looking guards who told him to wait out there in the rain while his appointment was confirmed. Security was tight in this place of the supremely, unimaginably rich. In fact, Saru smiled, he bet even his own imagination could not conceive the shortage of limitations their opulence, their power could produce, and here they were, asking for a shinobi to run a letter. Saru was due to receive it, and run it to all of Karada's men: it was a letter of condolence by the same man whose daughter was saved by the man and his forces: Harou Nekai and Saru-Shin. Saru stared at the building, for a long time.

Despite the beauty it held, he would never want to live in such a thing. His own small apartment in Konohamaru had a bedroom large enough he did not know what to do with. As a child, he rolled marbles on his bed before he lost them to the town boys in pursuit of a new pocketknife. As an adult, he could roll boulders in that room should he want to in pursuit of a new pet, like, say, a yellow lion… The entrance, the foyer was all finely carved wood, sloping Eastern-style, the outside walls both painted in white and stained in natural tones—it was all more beautiful than the rarest of black and white pictures for this was in muted color by way of the overcast clouds. Dotted along the wide wrap around porch were hanging baskets of brilliant-colored flowers, violets and begonias, and five foot beautiful feather-leaved purple maples balanced on either side in front on the lawn. The windows must have worn silk on the inside, and fine, immaculate gray shutters on the out, and Saru-Shin highly doubted any of them leaked through cracked caulk and a quarter inch gap. Level upon level, floor upon floor, it was a house of dreams with sloping roofs, a handsome stable, and land and pines as far as eye could see. Ryouma would have never known what to do with such a place.

The guard returned: "He will see you." And he led Saru through the gate and across the lawn, onto a pavement walkway of pressed gravel stone. Saru could see decorations now in the garden of native flora. Some statues were Buddha, with their eyes half closes, lolling in repose, and some were fountains and birdbaths. The moment Saru-Shin walked through the cedar-framed door (stenciled with an intricate damask-like pattern in red), he was instructed to take off his shoes by either another guard or steward-he could not tell which and he immediately obliged: no sense tracking mud or grass onto the man's dear, genuine hardwood floor, shining with such a keen gloss, Saru was momentarily transfixed by the clarity of his own reflection. "Wait here," the steward told him with a distant air.

Saru nodded unconsciously, slowly looking up to find artwork, in golden and brown frames, expensive vases of genuine, real flowers from the garden…and a black-dressed young woman of about nineteen with long black hair, peeking in from the den off the left hand side. It was one of several doors leading off the large anteroom. "Keiko-san," Saru smiled.

She cantered forward with liveliness to put all the decorations to shame, "Saru-Shin!" she exclaimed jubilantly. She acted as if she might hug him, and since she'd watched the steward leave their guest unattended, she did so, and wrapped him up in her arms snuggly.

He grinned, "I didn't think you would remember me…" he said openly after they parted.

"How would I forget you!" she said quietly, but disbelievingly, with a bright and cheerful smile. "How is your friend Harou? Is he well?"

"Oh—yes. Very well."

"I am so sorry," she said suddenly with solemnity in her almond eyes, "I heard what happened."

Saru managed to push down the grief more quickly this time, "Thank you."

"Ah," came an older man's voice from a doorway on the right, coming near, "Ryouma Saru-Shin?"

Saru inclined his head in a short bow as he confirmed, "Yes sir."

"Yes, I do remember you now—I am so very sorry for the loss of your captain," he said. He had walked in with the company of one of his first two sons—Saru presumed it was the eldest by way of the maturity in his face; it was much like his father's, with dark brown hair and blue eyes: exactly like his father. The father produced a letter from his jacket. "Please ensure his men read this. I am donating money now to the cause of the village in eastern Konoha—Senju Hashirama. Have you met him?"

"Yes sir," Saru answered again, taking the letter.

"I suppose you will join with him now, now that Karada has passed on."

Saru actually hesitated before nodding. "I already have, sir." He and Harou both. Kanae too. The only freelance pair attached to Karada remained Tsutomu and Nagira: "We're too old to give a damn," Nagira had said, "Sure, it's worked for now, but you can't beat the freelance work…That's the nitty-gritty 'stuff…"

"Well," the tsuchi man continued, "It is a blessed thing one man is able to lead where one leaves off. Hashirama has done a fine job. I was actually wondering why Karada never joined him."

Again, Saru hesitated, "Karada-sama needed to work freelance."

"Yes," the man gave a short conciliatory nod. "He worked best in that element. He was too crazy to be trusted," Iyadomi smiled, and it brought one to Saru's face as well. "Best of luck to you then." He nodded as if to say goodbye.

"Papa," his daughter broke in, "You can't _really_ send him away in weather like this. We must make him stay, for supper."

Mr Iyadomi glanced at his daughter curiously, "Oh—is it raining hard now?" he wondered casually.

Saru bit back a thought the man would not have known were it not for his water-tight windows—"Um, raining…moderately, sir…"

"Then, by all means. Stay for the meal," he smiled warmly.

Saru-Shin could not readily guess whatever would be on the menu as Keiko took him around for a tour.

.

After he thanked the man once more, he was left to go out in the rain-less night alone, but at the last moment, he saw the princess had followed him, taking the liberty to escort him out, on the porch, and onto the narrow pavement, where the rain had temporarily ceased. "Saru-Shin," she said with quickness, for a moment he thought nothing was ever still about her moving, graceful frame: "Would you mind meeting me Thursday-next at a place just north west of here, called the 'Bitter End' tavern?"

"Um…I believe so…what for?" he asked.

"To see you," she blushed.

"Me?"

"Yes _you_ silly. Would you have time? Say, eight o'clock sharp?"

"Well…I think so. I cannot promise you, but I'd love to. I'm bound to Hashirama's contract now, in old Konohamaru."

"Yes," she smiled. "It's strange—the iwa ninja here have been binding together. It's amazing what one act was able to procure."

"It is," he agreed.

"Well, please do come," she said, "I'd kiss you right now if my older brother were not watching out the window."

"Is he?" Saru successfully resisted the urge to look above him.

She nodded. "Father does not care much what I do, but Satoshi does. If he saw me kissing you passionately, he would tell father, and then father would sequester me and try to encourage me to a man of more…worthy, ambitions."

Saru was shocked to hear this from her lips. He was more shocked that she would even kiss him at all—the question of 'do you love me?' was prevalent in his thoughts, and yet he found himself almost afraid to ask. "…Why?" he eventually stammered out.

"Because he values a man of liberal intellect and wealth over a…poor foot-soldier," she smiled. "Mind you, I believe the intellectuals are the ones that have it all wrong…"

"No, no, I mean…why? Why would you…I don't understand. Why would you…kiss me?"

Her smile, wide and warm put all of the land of earth's mountains to shame. He'd never seen such a compassionate smile such as that, not since he could remember his mother sharing the same one with him long ago upon his striped young face. She did not have to say anything. But Saru did; he opened his mouth, struggling with putting his thoughts into words: "Keiko—how could you—Why do you care for me? We met a year ago—"

"Yes and on the way home, you were humming Dixieland," She pointed a straight finger into his chest, "I _know_ you _were_, don't deny it," she eyed him with a grin. "You have no idea how long it feels like it's been to meet you again. I only wish it could have been by the sails of chance. Honestly," she said, "I wanted to write you, I still have the letter handy upstairs, but I did not know who to write to. And you can't well have expected me to write you love letters via your captain. I don't care how kind-hearted he was."

"…Oh."

"No, it's all right. We have already spoken too long now, so go. And do not forget. Please be there," she said, and a feeling of something Monkey knew not what spread quickly through his veins like wildfire, while staring into her lovely dark brown eyes before he said goodbye; his only guess was love.

.

"Has everyone seen it?" Saru asked Harou late in the night. Harou was eating dinner at the tavern, on the western side of Konoha. "What's the use," he muttered indifferently.

"Oh it's a matter of honor."

"Do you really suspect…" Harou trailed, eying the white envelope familiar to him. "Yes," he sighed, "You're right."

Saru pursed his lips—"It just feels like I'm forgetting someone, but I don't know who."

"Kanae?"

"Got him."

"Nagira? Tsutomu? Fuyuto, Koichi, Ikemoto, Tenzou, Odayo—Hachiuma?"

"…Hachiuma?"

Harou shrugged.

"No," Saru sighed frustratingly. "It's almost like I'm thinking…of a woman…but…Of course! His widow!" he finally realized.

"Wh…" Harou turned, and Monkey was already running out the door. For a moment, Harou wanted to follow him. Instead he laughed to himself, and thought of her while he rolled the plain water around in his glass.

.

East of Tanzaku, there was the little home, infinitely modest by standards of wealth by Iyadomi, but truthfully larger than Saru's old home near Midori. Surrounded by a lush garden of butterfly bushes, hydrangeas, and the large, trimmed spirea bushes boasting small, sweet smelling white flowers near dark green leaves, Saru thought it could not look more out of place on the green lawn comprised of tall grass and wildflowers. The sight reminded him of a house that would appear in that of a fairy tale with a thatched roof and smoking chimney, qualities the house actually possessed with a clothes-line stretching out to the dark green forest which encompassed it. Indeed Monkey felt as if he'd just stumbled upon a dream. A secret garden. He approached distantly, taking in the small wonders, the smells, bees, and flowers; the path was large, made of flat pieces of grey stone, and moss clung all around and up the wood beams along the large, roofed front porch. A small stone garden was hidden near the front, winding like a river with old chunks of rock with bits of quartz. The stones made ripples in the sandy stream.

He knocked gently on the screen door after a moment, able to see a small kitchen to the right, and a family room to the left with a handsome red rug, a buckskin color mantle of birch wood in a heavy honey glaze; Saru-Shin grinned largely, and fought down a laugh as he could see the equally quaint and charming picture above it and the ivory candlesticks unlit, the deep, small loveseat sofa, and side table with another ivory lamp...the rustic charm almost brought tears to his striped eyes as he waited. They were not sad tears, but ones of a happy disbelief. He had never seen this place before. Saru now could not imagine for the life of him Karada actually living this way. The word and feeling of love again entered into Monkey's mind for an answer, and still Saru could not believe. Like Harou, he too found it hard to believe the man had stayed here long enough to produce three sons. How did he get married in the first place…? Was it by chance…? Was it youth…? Was it…

Saru bit his tongue harshly, trying to keep his imagination behind bars lest a humorous blow of laughter met the woman that came with soft footfalls over the creaking wood—if Karada were a carpenter, she was the homemaker: she came into view finally, at least five-seven, with a straight walk, both her arms in motion as if she were in the middle of ten things, all of them annoying. Her face was oval-shaped, and she was blonde-haired with round eyes at first Saru wanted to name as the deepest shade of amethyst violet he'd ever seen. Again, Monkey pinched himself discretely not to burst out in a never-ending laughter. She was wearing a brown top with three quarter sleeves above a dark blue skirt that fell to her knees.

The funeral had been one public, and one private, and she and the young boys had solely attended the later with the rest of the clan, or at least those that showed, neither Harou nor Saru knew how many Senju came to pay either laughter or respects. Her voice was like a rabbit's, if an _usagi_ could speak, "Yes?" she said shortly.

Swallowing mountains of confused good cheer, Saru reached into the pocket of his best vest and offered her the letter without a word. She opened the door, stepped out, and took it. She opened it on the spot, and read it, all the way to the back page. Saru waited, and she read it through with a steady and unwavering expression. Then, after she was done, she looked up and said, "Thank you."

Saru nodded his head. "Yes ma'am."

"I take it…you were one of my husband's disciples, were you?"

Saru was actively battling the giggles still, and he was actively losing: "Yes ma'am."

With a sudden hop in her voice and a strict air about her eyes, she asked pointed, "Whatever is so amusing to you?"

Having been caught, Saru let it out.

"All this!" he said after his laughter eventually calmed and her patience proved infinite. "You—This house. All of it."

To his surprise, she returned a knowledgeable smile. "You did not think Karada…capable of being anything other than a soldier."

"No…"

She smiled. "He wasn't. He _was_ a soldier, through and through. A solider of wits, and ninjutsu alike," she said matter-of-factly. "He devoted his life out there, and came home only when it suited him. May you, young man, never do such a thing as long as you live and breathe," Saru's smile finally vanished with the knife of her honest-spoken words. "I do not regret our time together," she continued almost wistfully. "But you men never learn how to make commitments to those you love. It's always the job. Never the woman. Never the _intended_," She glanced over the top of her fairy-tale garden with sagacity entering her mind, "And was all this, as you say, _intended_… How he was able to touch all of your lives, I do not know," she said reflectively, "But he was good at it. Darn good at it. He was sensei material with wise eyes like his. The kind that would leave you out in the forest for something to gain. He was something else, that Senju was," she declared, "Something else entirely," she smiled suddenly—"And even I was just another one touched by him it seems."

A pause wafted between the two, bringing the tender fragrance of roses, magnolia, clematis, lavender, and still more. A bird landed near the stone garden to peck something it found worthy of pursuit, and another to a tall birdbath hidden by a bush. "Do you miss him?" she asked suddenly.

"Yes ma'am—he was...the best man I ever knew."

One corner of her mouth smiled, while the other remained even. "Yes. So do I," she concurred. And just then, the two could hear the sound of a young man coming forward, peeking through the kitchen. It was her small seven year old, "The youngest," she said.

Saru smiled at him warmly.

"Thank you, for bringing this," she told the shinobi, and handed it back to him.

"Do you…not want to keep it?"

"No," she shook her head, smiling. "Goodbye now, and safe journey."

"Oh—yes—thank you," Saru nodded his head, and she went inside.

"Who was that man…?" Saru could hear in a small voice as he left the porch slowly. "Somebody daddy knew…?"

Saru left the quaint house like in a dream still, with a queer knowledge that once he left, he may never see it again in the same way—the son would grow up, the plants would wave and change, the house would grow older, and the Intended, too, would age slowly.

.

The 'Bitter End' sounded like a place of hard luck and hard drink. The two usually blended together frequently. He was sure they were the same age, nineteen as he remembered, so he wondered what he got himself into...

After asking a few locals in which direction it was, he came to a town, and hidden beyond, due north west almost a quarter mile, he came around toward the side of one large wooden building standing alone just beyond the lonely road out of the equally lonely town. Saru-Shin could hear the sweet sound of a rosewood violin coming from a wide veranda out in back. It was about seven-thirty in the evening and Saru came closer, hidden by part of the open arbor, and he walked forward slowly, to the noise which he could only define as the most beautiful racket he had ever heard in his life. It was better, far better than the static radio with the noise and cultural sounds from Nobu or Tanzaku this time of night or later, and it was the simple kind of beauty to make his father want to shut up, sit tight, and listen with an ear next to the old speaker. For a voice over that music, that playing, would be murder. And true, another means of prettying the soft but upbeat piece was the young girl herself, a young woman, playing it. Her beauty added to it, and fluidly her upper arms moved with the bow skipping from one string to the next, her fingers having already arrived at the next notes: all of which she stood there and caught like rain falling from the sky. Saru could see her clearly. The whole of her playing was so honest and simple, he felt his eyes display his emotion.

She finished, and Saru became aware of the other dancers on the floor, the people, and band who were with her. If Monkey sat there and counted, he doubted he would reach more than twenty or so. Behind the raven-haired and raven's dress of the young woman sat a guitar player, middle-aged, and on the right was also a forty or fifty-something somnambulant-looking man with a mandolin, plucking lazily a few pairs of strings at a time slowly with hooded eyes. The only other movement about him was his head which Saru noticed the second time: it seemed to be bobbing, minutely, to her beat. Behind them stood an upright bass, unaccompanied. It seemed they were missing someone. They played on a short wooden platform above the wooden deck beneath a grand arbor of open trellises over it, and down the sides, thick with white flowering vines that curled like green icicles across the expanse. Leaning forward against the south end of the arbor, Saru noticed a small alcove with a closed nook off the side of the building where and a man and his wife, Monkey presumed, were setting up records as if to get them ready to play. Both looked to be somewhere in their forties—his lady was in a white yukata. In seats, adjacent to the stage on the north side, sat a young woman in back Saru immediately recognized, and glancing his way by happenstance, immediately, she recognized him: Hagiwara Akeno sat in the very back row by herself with a business man, or he looked to be one, wearing a clean white shirt, and dark navy pants. His jacket of the same color was draped over the young woman's shoulders. Nearly matching her orange-auburn hair, the young lady was wearing an orange shawl over a dark mahogany color dress, red and brown. She looked beautiful, pink cheeks and lips, with tiny pink flowers and vines scrolled across her dress. She also retained her nervousness and shyness—Akeno was astonished to see him there.

Toward the front were about ten others, each and every one dressed simply but smartly. The women wore either skirts, dresses, or yukata, and the men in assorted green, brown, and blue collars. Then, out on the floor danced one pair: an old man and his wife, each looking to be about seventy or thereabouts, dancing slowly, but in time. He was wearing a good brown shirt, and his lady wore a printed top and pleated skirt, small red flowers dotting the white fabric, and an open red vest was over her shoulders. Her grey hair was in a tight bun.

A smile would not vanish from Saru's face no more than water from the north sea. He remembered the young woman vividly, pointing her finger in his chest, saying she knew what 'Dixieland' sounded like. In fact, judging by this backyard club, she knew far more than '_I'll not be back this way again_…'; she knew every single one earlier than that. He could tell this by her passion, and her spirit, and the fact there were no music stands in front of either person from the trio. And those around her, in good spirits too, were tapping their feet and nodded their heads along. Saru felt rich with an odd sense of victory, never dreaming to find a young woman like her. He also felt an inch of jealously, if she were anybody's girl.

The piece ended with her bow trailing off the edge of the string in peace. All three received instant adoration in the form of clapping, even from the man and his wife, still bending over with their player like something had gone wrong with it yet again. And the older couple—the oldest couple clapping while staring wistfully with their grey eyes over the elongated yellow lanterns, vines, and Keiko, who after a brief respite turned behind her and exchanged words with the salt and pepper-haired guitarist for their next piece. She turned then after a moment, picked up her bow and fiddle. The tears resurfaced, glossing Monkey's eyes. It was an instrumental piece of 'If I Needed You'.

The guitarist supported the rest, both vocal and instrumental, while the mandolin man continued his somnambulant picking, a little slower this time. Saru watched the man's eyes close; he was listening to the others. Saru then continued to stare at their young lead: her flowing sleeveless black dress flared from her waist in tight pleats, with a stretch or two of black satin ribbon around the bottom and at her waist. The fabric moved swiftly, as she, with a sheer black dress shirt above, with short sleeves.

Together they performed three songs more, including the one the man sang to, and still leaning against the pine post, Monkey stayed hidden from her, smiling all the way through. Come eight o'clock, all three were tucking away their instruments, and Keiko, stepping off the platform while the others from the seats were coming on to the floor, she caught the oldest couple, heading back for the chairs. Akeno, and the man, had not moved yet, though Saru saw them exchanging words. It was obvious that Keiko, the princess, was looking around hurriedly for the figure of the short, odd white-haired fellow, and Monkey stepped forth like he had come in late from the detour of the rather large smashed pumpkin on the road she—or he had left behind: "Saru-Shin!" she exclaimed in a voice of both surprise and joy, a voice which she had consciously planned not to be to loud: she cantered over to him promptly, "Oh Saru you made it!" she said again.

He smiled warmly, "I heard you play."

Suddenly, her swift arched brows rose a quarter, "Oh?"

"You are beautiful, Miss Keiko."

Shocked, she smiled dumbly until the start of the music finally caught her attention. The ancient player began playing after Saru had heard, "Ladies and gents—we've fixed it, again! Enjoy this fine evening…"

Upon the start, she reached for his hand and pulled him behind, pulling him toward the dance floor—"Wait! What are you—_Keiko_…!"

A grin blossomed on her face wide and glowing, as the other flowers around the yellow lit place were closing up from the twilight above, "What are you doing?" he asked again, watching the others dancing to an old upbeat tune he knew.

"You came to dance, didn't you?" She took hold of both his hands firmly, lest he jumped away shyly. Within a moment she twirled to the beat and quickly he uttered toward her in a low voice, "But I don't dance."

She gasped, melodramatically, and she twirled again, leading him back and forth and side to side: she was constantly in motion. "Saru-Shin, I am surprised at you!" She continued to smile, dancing her own way, then leading him to the right and then to the left. "What's the good of singing a song if you can't dance to it?"

"Well…" he began, and trailed, focusing more on where she was leading him. "Well it's just not something I've _done_…Private or public," he murmured to himself.

"Then you were not as rogue a man as I thought," she said, still smiling with a flush of pinkness in her cheeks, "I will have to loosen you up," she said confidentially, "There is not much to it. We meet every Thursday," she explained. "Where real music is concerned. The band and I give old-time concerts on Tuesday evenings. But tonight—tonight is the night I dance."

And she was a spirited, gifted, graceful dancer, as well as fiddle player. Her rhythm was young, innocent, and flawless—with passion and energy abounding. "We go two hours," she added.

"—Two hours!" Saru exclaimed privately. She grinned and her dress twirled again like a black pansy, spinning, "—Wh—Surely you don't dance the _entire_ two hours…!"

She grinned and said, "There is a fifteen minute intermission halfway, and I sing on two songs—perhaps you would join me? Oh—And I play one waltz…about twelve, or thirteen songs from now.

"…Lord!" he murmured in disbelief.

The second song was a group dance, and there were now only about four pairs on the floor, including the ninja and the princess. The song was another Saru knew, sung by an old singer. Saru got lost on his feet more than once, having never danced in a group before, but no one took it seriously. The following song was finally a slow one—the oldest couple rejoined the few pairs, and Saru was learning her slow rhythm was more important than concentrating on her actual steps. The only person he would have ever danced with in his short life of nineteen years was his mother, as she sang some old song after washing dishes or coming over the little wooden bridge from the Mihure's, swinging him around herself with a wonderful smile and long black hair…Akeno was now on the floor with the handsome, tall man. "How is Akeno?" Saru-Shin asked the princess quietly, while the candles continue to burn all hidden and yellow in paper lanterns.

Keiko grinned, "She is very well," she returned quietly; they were on opposite ends, with the oldest couple and two other in-between. "Her parents are actively encouraging her to…ah…" Keiko whispered fondly, "…Attract prospective suitors."

Saru glanced again quickly. Akeno looked modestly shy as ever. He could see the continual spec of fear in her eyes from the night Saru first met her and Keiko.

"Ever since…north country, she has sequestered herself away," Keiko confirmed confidentially, "and vows she will have no man. At least she vows it to me. But…anyone with eyeballs can see that Sanada is the perfect match for her. He is thirty-two years old, fifteen years her senior, but he is a genuine…good man. He is a sailor, a captain, from the north—actually born in Kusa—the north, I believe."

"Oh," said Saru. Keiko bit her tongue, keeping in, for now, so much else on the matter. "Stars" went quickly, leading right into "Let Me Call You Sweetheart", where, alongside the oldest couple, both Keiko and the old woman mouthed the lyrics playfully. The only thought running through Monkey's busy, chaotic mind was that this young woman was _too_ perfect, the kind that made him want her with a rush in his veins he'd never felt before. No sooner could he hope to sweep her off her feet would he lose her to some dashing man from the coast far more handsome than he. During the old-fashioned waltz, he asked her suddenly, very quiet, "Do you really care about me?"

She nearly laughed aloud and mouthed the words, "_Let me call you sweetheart, darling, I love you_," She grinned then quietly as women sometimes do, caught in a silence of affirmations unsaid. They were dancing near the platform, keeping in that area while the old woman and the man were enjoying the slower-paced music to the couple's right. Keiko could see the old woman glance at her knowingly, almost appreciatively the raven-haired princess had finally found someone to dance with. "No one has seen me here, dancing with a young man like you," Keiko whispered, "I have always danced alone. Though, I have danced with Sanada-san—Akeno's suitor."

"I bet he dances better than me."

"Well. He is so much used to a boat rocking beneath his feet, he says it's quite difficult for him to keep in time…"

Saru smiled, "Oh."

The next song was a group dance—Keiko gave a firm look to seventeen year old Akeno who was sitting on the edge of the seats with Sanada, and he stood up. Akeno returned a coy glance at her friend and followed him willingly. After the dance, two minutes later, a duet began on a record and Keiko rejoined Saru-Shin, and Akeno to Sanada; the old woman, to her old gentleman.

Keiko continued to dance on and on—Saru grew weary, watching her dance spiritedly to 'Shady Grove' and then he rejoined her when the inimitable sound of the original wafted through the speaker phone. "If I needed you," she mouthed, "Would you come to me…?"

She danced sublime. As the next song explained it, 'like a diamond shines' she stepped and never lost the beat once upon her small and swift feet. Then she would return to the simple back and forth motions with him while she and the old woman sang aloud, to his surprise, "Roses are red—Violets are blue, primroses pale, on the velvet green hue, warm summer days, by cool waterfalls, like music we hear; those things we'll always hold dear—like an old fashioned _waltz_…" Then Keiko surprised him again, and sang aloud by herself as she danced with him, "Living on the road, my friends, it's going to keep you free and clean…"

Then, another group dance.

Then, her heart skipped a fanciful beat during the swift silence afterward, "This is my favorite song," she said with a quick grin, "They let me sing it."

"Oh…?"

"Yes, and _you_ will sing the duet with me—I'll get you started…"

She pulled him back onto the dance floor just as he stuttered a "Wait, wait, Keiko, I _don't_…" And then he heard the familiar music play, and she sang beautifully, "He said 'oh my love, O my _Antonia_…You with the dark _eyes_ and palest of _skin_…'" And during the short respite between stanzas, she was looking at her partner most expectantly. He swallowed his own shyness and just as he opened his mouth, she opened hers to voice his words in case he had backed down. He began unsteady, but finished well.

Their voices blended easy for the chorus.

"…_You are the one I will always remember: all of the days of my life_…"

Next song, he was able to stand near Akeno idly in solitude—Keiko leapt up on the stage like a grasshopper and fiddled an old waltz all by herself—it was the oldest couple's waltz: slow, soft, and terribly romantic-sounding. Akeno explained with a small shy smile, "It is their favorite." Dancing front and center, they looked like the two most contented, happy souls in all the world.

Next song, Saru glanced at the alcove, for he could not believe what he was hearing. He was dumbed with disbelief until a few moments later, when dancing with the princess, "…This is my favorite song," he told her. "The Catfish Song…"

Saru met with Akeno and Sanada during the intermission, and again after the long, totally exhausting two hours of grinning ear to ear intermittently and moving across the deck in circles like restless fools; the people were heading home. It was past ten-thirty. Keiko secured her violin, and she exchanged words with the manager in the alcove. From afar, Saru noticed him glance his way—the wife, too, and smile. Briskly, she left them after a moment, picked up her charcoal case, and extended a hand for Saru-Shin once more. "Will you walk with me?"

"Oh—I still have legs?" he grinned. Saru sat up from the back row. Nearly everyone was gone. Even Akeno walked away with Sanada, who escorted her home. Keiko laughed.

"Let me carry that, will you?"

"I wore you out," she smiled. "I will keep it. You're too kind, Saru-Shin," she said, and she led him out on a path north-east. "Now I can_ finally_ say this. Ever since I met you, I wanted to know you. Ever since I heard 'Dixieland', I knew. And now, I'm fairly sure that I love you Ryouma Saru-Shin."

He eyed her suddenly in bewilderment—"Really?"

She smiled warmly, "Really."

"Oh, well…I suppose now I can say this, too…I love you back, Iyadomi, Keiko. You're amazing. I have never, ever, in my life, danced like that. Or sang like that in front of so many," he added reflectively. "The beauty of it all will haunt me now, in my dreams. There will never be anything else like it. Thank you."

"The night isn't over yet," she said seriously, still smiling thoughtfully.

"Well—" he was caught unaware, fishing out the answer in her meaning. "I'm not sure…" he said, eying her eying him. "We need to be married, first. Would you—" Saru-Shin realized then, like a splash of cold water on his face and God above in His joyful Heaven that he was proposing to a woman below—"Would you marry me, Miss Keiko?" he said with as much question in his own voice.

She grinned, and she nodded.

"Really?"

"Yes!"

He stood there in shock for a moment until he felt an unrivaled feeling of glee in his heart. With joy he turned as she pressed him onward, interlocking arms. Saru was not even mindful of the stars now, with such a woman, such a future, dream, and love beside him.

"…I suppose," he said after his thoughts, like a great stack of papers flying out on a windy day out a window had finally all fallen and settled—"You're father, would disapprove."

"If you save enough money, and if you approach him at a good time, he might accept you."

"Yes—that's right," he thought suddenly, thinking with sudden sagacity on the subject. "A ring, a house…" he trailed dispiritedly. None of which objects, at present, he could afford.

They walked on through another heavy silence, until he said what was on his mind. "We're—going to have to wait," he told her. "Maybe, a while. Would you—would you wait?"

"Yes," she nodded. "I can wait. But you must try and come by on Thursdays—everyone was so curious about you," she made herself laugh. "I dearly love that place with all my heart. The people are few. The music is old. We know each other, and I could dance all night if I wanted. I have," she claimed. "Akeno wasn't very happy though…" she murmured with a smile.

"Yes," he agreed. "It's wonderful. Where were you taking me, anyway?"

"Well, I was going to take you near the river, where you and Karada held out after you saved me. I was going to make love to you there, but…" The two had stopped—"I suppose that's not going to happen now. You must probably leave in the morning. And we will be two parted souls until the reunions, and our wedding day," she finished quietly. "I can wait 'till then," she nodded. "I will wait. I'm better off kissing you goodbye here, and heading off to Akeno's place. I suppose we'll have to leave it at that… Her home is just due west along the river there. I always stay there Thursday nights, and sometimes on Tuesdays, but really only when her parents are away. She can't stand being alone…Neither can I," the princess added softly.

After a while, he nodded. "I have to head back east in the morning. Rice country."

"…May I still show you the river? It's not far."

Despite his own tiredness, he nodded with a warm smile. "I'd like that."

With the stars twinkling above, the deep blue river sparkled with moving specs of white glitter underneath the half moon above south tsuchi. He commented on it's beauty, and hers, the superior of all. It was then, in the still moment of the night she leaned in slowly, her hands holding his, with the violin sitting lonely on the ground. She kissed him on the lips, and tentatively, their embrace grew tighter as she leaned her body against his.

When it came to part, she kissed him a final time, passionately, before she and the flying fiddle both followed the river west without a sound. Saru, after seeing her out of sight, moved in the opposite direction slowly, heading north-east, for the border. Much was on his mind… …"As she started to go, then I started to know how it feels, when the _universe reels_…" Saru-Shin hummed with a wide smile.

.

It was their last dance together, nearly a year later, and somewhere toward the end of 'Paddy On the Beat', only seven dances in, Sanada stopped suddenly from the group dance, and Akeno paused—he took out a small black box and knelt down on one knee before the eighteen year old girl. "Akeno, will you marry me?" he asked.

The woman in question put a hand to her mouth and stood there, clearly surprised, and visibly moved. Everyone else had stopped to see this miraculous scene while the pleasant music rolled on. "Will you?"

"Yes," she nodded her head. Her hand trailed down, revealing a hearty, and joy filled smile with tears in her eyes, glittering over her distant fears with the security of happiness. "Yes." The next dance was theirs.

Raven-haired Keiko stood with Saru-Shin at the very back of the stage, and while no one was watching, not even him, she kissed him warmly on the side of his cheek. "Pretty soon, hopefully, that will be you and me down there," she said quietly.

"Yeah—" he hesitated. "I think I've got the ring settled, but I still need more time for…"

She nodded her head lightly. "Yes," she said with a breath like she knew what she was waiting for. Then, suddenly, she brightened, "Hey, we could always buy a boat with that!"

"A boat? Why? Oh…" She smiled deviously. He laughed a little when he understood her meaning, "I will let you bring your pony."

She grinned, "Thank you. I wouldn't leave without him. And we could all go then, together, out on the north sea. Together," she repeated wistfully.

For a second or two, the idea genuinely appealed to him. Keiko laughed softly again and held onto his arm, watching the pair, her best friend and the other fine-looking man in the world dance alone out on the floor. "They are a handsome couple," said Keiko fondly with a large smile. "I am so happy for her."

Beside her, Saru nodded his head and agreed. "They are indeed," A moment passed before he asked, "Will they go out to sea, do you think?"

"In time. I think…Well, she told me," Keiko admitted with a blush on her own face, "She told me he wouldn't ask unless she would tell him it was all right to do so. I guess she told him it was all right to," Keiko smiled. "He is mature enough to make her so happy. And he…Sanada has been looking for a while, now, I think," she observed in her own way, "And such a sweeter, more innocent girl he will never find next to her. Akeno is perfect for him."

"Hm," Saru remarked later with a smile, "Sounds familiar."

"…'Sail Away Ladies'!" called the man with the records once the song ended.

"You are going to continue a sea theme to tease her," Keiko told him. Akeno was blushing. Even Sanada was surprised in an amused way. But the sudden sound of the spirited aire swept them all to dance together.

.

"Oh youth," he remarked disparagingly, "We are all truculent _fools_…"

"Truculent? Why do you say that?"

"We can't seem to leave anybody _alone_…"

"My goodness you're getting cranky," said a different voice—twenty-three year old Harou Nekai looked over the tall platform behind him. "…Monkey."

"Taking break…" were the next words to exit his mouth.

"Have you been doing _watch_ duty!" Saru-Shin exclaimed.

"The currier lines to the north of Taki are jammed again by nature's fury. A man can't navigate there this time of year easily. I came home and I was reassigned here—they were short on hand. It's really boring. Where have you been?"

"Tsuchi."

"…Again?"

"Even for love, you would do it too," Saru's dark eyes grinned, sparking with amusement.

"Oh _shut_ up," Harou said unforgivingly, "I will never marry," he said matter-of-factly.

"Maybe," said Saru with a funny grin, which caused Harou to stand there and roll his eyes: "Meet me tonight, on the mountain—" he cocked his head and smiled, "—there's much we need to catch up on."

Saru nodded.

Later, they reconvened like two wafting ghosts in the night. Harou was already waiting for the white haired young man. "It's good you're back," Harou admitted, "I was hoping to run into you soon."

"Oh run into _me_ Harou? How is your eyesight then…all right…?"

Harou shook his head, smiling. "Blast you and your happiness…" he muttered.

Saru laughed jovially.

"So what. Are you ready to wed soon?"

"You will get an invitation," Saru promised. "You'll probably get one before my own family does. And you…I want you to be my witness."

"Your witness," Harou repeated. "You torture me, don't you."

Saru-Shin grinned.

"What if I'm flung into the sands of suna before I get my invitation?"

"I will personally deliver it to you," said Saru.

"…Thanks," his friend said quietly after a while. "I'll consider it an honor. I guess…" he added slowly, "I guess you two really are in love."

Saru-Shin fought down another grin, and so he diverted it away best he could, but it was like stopping the sun from rising. "Because you won't marry, you find it hard to believe in love elsewhere…is that it? Did I get that right?"

"Yes," Then Harou suddenly looked bewildered: "Monkey," he opened his mouth, baffled, "You've gotten awfully perceptive…I don't like it. I don't like having my motives strewn about the floor like this."

"Yes. I know you hide stuff up your sleeve," Saru chuckled. "But really—I learned from the best."

"Hm," said his friend, until Harou looked at him seriously, "Do you really mean that?"

"Mean what?"

"Have I really gotten so aloof—have I been arrogant toward you?"

Saru hid the biggest smile yet. "You're short with everybody. I'll just put it that way."

"Well I know that. But you're the only one I'm not short with."

"Yes, you are very tall compared to me."

"Oh…" Harou was unnerved by Saru's ability to laugh at any given moment. He was breaking up fits of laughter now. "Karada was right, about you," Harou said when the laughter subsided and a smile on both their faces remained, "He was right about _you_, about so many other things. And he told me…He said to me once I needed to look after you…but really…I think you have been the one keeping me _sane_. We've gone through quite a bit, this past year," Harou paused. "Thank you."

"The honor was Karada's, I'm sure."

"And so it can remain. Here's to you," Harou offered without drink nor pipe, but instead with an empty, lonely heart. "And best wishes for a lifetime of happiness," added Harou, with a warm smile.

"Thanks. I'm actually a little nervous…"

"Oh. well. I'm sorry I can't offer you any advice—or consol."

"Yes, yes—you who shall 'never marry'," finished Saru-Shin. "Never fall in love…It's not so bad," he smiled quickly, "But remain aloof," he resumed, "So you can look after our kids every time we're on holiday."

"Oh?" Harou uttered as if he were suddenly reduced to a steward or coxswain, "I must do that? Ha. Glad to," he agreed with a short chuckle.

Saru grinned to himself as he foresaw Harou not knowing what he would have gotten himself into. "That reminds me—after all this time, I finally figured out what to put inside the journal Karada gave to me."

"Oh?"

Saru grinned. "Yep."

.

Harou went off again soon, escaping sensei work, delivering messages as a currier, the kind of messages, the kind of secrets not trusted to messenger bids and the hawks, but to plain clothes people who could get by without much notice, and within weeks, Harou learned something suddenly that turned him around immediately. But he did not turn for the old Konohamaru, the hokage office, nor that general direction—He turned to fetch Saru-Shin, wherever he was. Keiko was not well.

Harou remembered telling him, and turning around, to see him run into the forest—in a blurry white flash, he was gone.

.

Yet again, Saru-Shin stood outside the tall wrought iron gates of that immaculate, locked up, impenetrable fortress of strength in south tsuchi—he was breathless, not from the beauty nor richness, but anxiety, that kind of dismay that grappled his heart every waking second, tying his stomach in knots he believed would never come undone. What had gone wrong? Had she been sick for sometime without him even knowing? Or did she never tell him if that was the case…? "_Please_," he begged again, "I _must_ speak with the family." He explained his case futilely to the guards who were adamant no one was to enter spontaneously. But what Saru lacked in tact, he gained by recognition. Less than two minutes later, her brother, the eldest of the two came forth from the house, a black umbrella cord wrapped around his wrist. Though the clouds were dark grey and thick, it was not yet raining. Like Saru, the sky seemed to be holding it's breath one way or the other.

The doors were opened upon the brother's admission. Monkey's heart thudded frantically like a waterfall while the young man said merely, "I will take you to her," in the same quiet tone of solemnity.

Monkey nodded his head and followed quickly, "Thank you."

Just before they reached the front door, the eldest stopped. "I'm aware…you two were close," he said simply. "And I regret…what has happened."

He then led Saru-Shin inside where he took off his shoes and followed the man nearly like a dog at his heels. This dog wasn't paying much attention to the flowers and paintings, nor the glass sheen of the hardwood staircase Saru had never trod before, nor the finely carved railing—up at the top of the stairs, his heart suddenly dropped painfully as he saw all these closed white doors above beige carpeting. He felt like he would fall back to the landing, but a sway turned him forward, directed to the large white door on the west end. "Father," he had just exited from it. The brother walked forward silently, "He must see her."

After a slight pause, Mr Iyadomi nodded, and moved aside, somewhat. Saru reached for the handle, his heart still lost somewhere in the pit of his stomach or at the front door—he turned it and entered inside…closing it behind him gently. If Saru's apartment had been about fifty times the size of his closet bedroom, he did not care to know how much her room exceeded that; but there she lie, near the south bay window and he raced to her side, and held her hand.

Her body was covered by a thin white sheet in a thin white night gown, and her face was as pale as his own—cloud white, and it was glistening, from both sweat and exhaustion above a clean white pillow, dotted with small blue flowers. Much of her soft raven's hair was matted—a cool compress underneath supported her neck. "Keiko," Saru said, "Keiko," Gently, he squeezed her hand, and waited impatiently.

She began to open her eyes, and Saru-Shin shuddered as he saw the eyes of a sick woman—it brought back the memories of his own mother. "Keiko," he spoke firmly, "I'm right here," And he smiled supportively, even though he was shaking on the inside, as the pink rose color leapt to his cheeks, instead of her own. "…If you needed me—I'd _come_ to you. Remember?"

A faint smile changed her face, making him weep dearly on the inside. She swallowed, and said slowly, "Saru-Shin, in the top drawer, of my dresser, in a black sock on the left, there is a note. Get it. _Now_," she said when he did not move.

Trembling, he went to the large white piece, engraved with a few simple flowers between the pulls, and he opened it silently, and found it. With care he closed the drawer quietly and held the note in one hand while his other wrapped again around hers, "Do not read it now," she continued slowly. "Put it in your pocket—Yes—Thank you Saru-Shin."

"Keiko…"

"I—" she began again with difficulty, "—will be gone, soon. No—do not weep. I—have wept enough. Saru. Would you…" she lost her voice for a moment. "Would you have run away with me, if I had asked you?"

"…If I could have given you the moon, anything—Yes. I would."

She smiled sadly, looking away, up toward the ceiling and her walls; "Then it is a heavy loss—indeed. I regret I did not ask you sooner, I regret we never…"

"No," he stroked her hair lovingly, "No regrets. We did the right thing. We can still be wed—We can. You'll get better you see—"

"—No," she said simply, with a small smile. "Now go—please."

"Keiko," he objected in an emotional tone.

"Shh," she said, smiling, with a faint sparkle in her eyes. It was the same look she had when she first kissed him—when he was first kissed. Regardless of her skin and needless sweat, it was the same woman on that platform, in the sweeping black dress with old music swept into her heart, and her fiddle… Saru leaned in closer, holding her hair. He kissed her forehead for a gentle, fragile moment, bringing back memories of grand and hopeful dreams. The raging wildfire in his veins, shaking all across the land caused his hand to tremble—it was love, he understood. A dying one he would never let go of.

"Please. Remember me…near the river," she said, with a smile. "Remember me—a dreamer."

Saru heard the door open—it was a nurse maid, or _the_ maid, he could not tell. When he looked back Keiko had closed her eyes, and she moved her head to rest. And under a power he did not believe his own since for once in his life all the strength he held was gone, Saru-Shin stood, and walked away, looking behind him with a blurry gaze as he left. The woman's father entered in again, after the shinobi, leaving Saru out in the hall with her oldest brother.

"…Mother died, the same way—from fever," he mentioned quietly. "I fear…I fear she will not last the night."

They were both silent for a moment until Ryouma found something to say, "With my mother, it was cancer. She died when I was thirteen." The men had been helpless, just as they were now.

"Keiko was nine—I was sixteen. Lord," he said. "Her innocence saved me. It really did."

Saru nodded sympathetically, remembering his younger, silver-haired brother—Coushander had been eight. "Children, are dreamers," Monkey whispered, counting himself still one of them.

Satoshi nodded.

.

'Do not weep for me,  
Behold you are with me, as sure as the stars,  
That rise in the evening, that shine down upon me—  
Behold I am with you, _wherever_ you _are_.'

Monkey read those words later that night, near the river, soon after she died. And now that he read those words, he took the little silver ring out of the same pocket and started at it for a while, watching the small stone sparkle from every angle in the full moonlight above. It shined every color to his eyes, reminding him of the way she could dance. "Dancing like a diamond shines…" he lilted. He let his hand fall and he sighed, feeling the despair engulf him like a heavy blue fog. After a moment, he tossed the ring into the river. "It's a pretty rock," he said to himself. "It won't rust. It's a rock. It will be there when we return."

He lied down, on the ground, staring up at the night curtain forlornly. He wondered where the new stars were as if he should be able to tell which one was her. But soon, Saru-Shin could hear the small snapping and rustling of animals in the night; he looked up and saw a large, fat possum in one of the trees, watching him, Saru smiled. By the time he turned back to look, it had hid itself somewhere behind the trunk. Then Saru heard the distinct footfalls of a taller creature—two. Man and wife. He sat up and turned about to look. Akeno pressed onward briskly for Keiko's home along a narrow path while Sanada stopped near in the bright moonlight.

Saru-Shin shook his head, unaware if even they knew. "She—didn't make it."

"I'm so sorry," he said solemnly, his hands in his pockets.

Saru could hear a loud cicadae screeching nearby in the long respite of silence.

"…Will you still come by, on Thursdays?" asked Sanada respectfully.

"I can try," Saru said honestly. "Won't you and miss Akeno go out to sea soon…?"

Sanada smiled shortly. "Yes," he admitted. "But that won't be for another month yet."

Saru nodded. He laughed shortly. "She…Keiko, was trying to teach me her fiddle. Here. Beside the river," he smiled. "I wasn't very good."

"Did you see her, before she…?"

Saru nodded. "Yes. I did. Next time—Next life," he said. "We'll get married. Next time."

.


	5. Old Fashioned Taki Wisdom

Chapter 5  
_**Old Fashioned Taki Wisdom**_

.

.

Five years later, Monkey left for the land of mist and fog with four others, leaving Harou behind, at his open displeasure. But, in that time frame, he hadn't been the one to go and make himself a very fine captain, skilled, patient, and smart…with a few red infractions still here and there on his white record. Harou continued disinterest in small, or large groups, getting away from sensei duty to new recruits—he had been one with Monkey's younger brother. Harou preferred to work alone. And since he knew the countries well, he was satisfied being a currier.

Two years later, the four in the team returned, alive, but for one. Harou was with them on the boat ride back, after receiving the call to come scarcely four days before. The call had been from Hashirama himself, knowing Harou was the only man to chose to go, not so much for skill, but for the connection. And the connection now, was severed. Like the rudder from below, Harou could feel it as he stared off the starboard side at night, watching the water, instead of the sky, feeling odd he should be moving at all.

.

He went to visit Monkey's apartment he had shared with his younger brother, who followed Saru to the village at sixteen. The young man, nearly twenty-two now, was still committed to the hospital for the horrible wounds inflicted from the final battle, and Harou was gathering Saru's things, his headband bearing the insignia for the village, and the notebook, the brown leather journal Karada had given Monkey. Hesitantly, Harou opened it and read Karada's inscription, _'Here is my honor, here is my truth—Here, is all that matters'_, and there, beginning on the first page and running to the very end was every old song, written by hand, by Ryouma Saru-Shin.

"How am I to live," Harou asked himself, "Without you—lunatic," he murmured aloud. Then he remembered what Hashirama had said to him a few nights before. So Harou gathered up the items, and brought them to the hospital, reuniting the few effects with the greasy black kunai they must have saved. In Katakana, only '_Saru-Shin_' was engraved on the black triangle. It was Saru's pride and joy, that kunai was. Harou stared at it for a while. "I am not really a swordsman," Saru had told him when Harou had offered to teach Monkey how to use the white katana in Saru's possession. Instead, the kunai was all that suited Saru. "…Did I fail?" Harou murmured to himself questioningly. Then listlessly, killing time he wanted to kill, Harou walked around to the room out of simple curiosity, and looked in, opening the door quietly—Coushander was sleeping, while the Morino fellow was watching. Ichida was there, too, the only one looking unsurprised upon the thirty year old's sudden entrance. Caught at a loss, Harou looked again at Monkey's little brother—who was in fact taller than he was by a good measure. "I brought his brother's things," Harou said quietly, staring at the grey-haired young man. "I figured it would save him the trouble. I suppose he'll go home, to…" He was going to finish, 'bury Saru-Shin', but somehow, the words wouldn't come out.

"Oh," the Morino said.

"I heard what happened today," Harou added self-consciously, glancing at the two. Harou smirked—he couldn't help it. "Hashirama often exceeds his bounds."

The two exchanged glances.

"Forgive me," Harou began to wake from that slip of the tongue, even if he meant every word of it—"I will leave."

"Wait—what did you say?" said the Morino. His eyes were dark and probing.

Harou took a moment to respond until he said truthfully in a voice that cracked his own heart, or that thing that beat like a hollow drum inside of him, "Saru-Shin is dead." With that, he left, crying finally as he exited the building.

Taki was beautiful, and mysterious that time of year… …

.

Fifteen years later, victory was somewhere in sight for the allied cause of then, the first great shinobi war. There was nothing that was great about it he thought, but after living with ghosts, in tsuchi, taki, and the land of waves where Tsutomu settled quietly (no surprise, for he had then finally, "Come full circle to where I began."), Harou was ready for something to keep him busy. Forty-five was quite close, or on the edge to the age of recklessness. He'd read that somewhere. "So I suppose," Harou said to himself, with no ties now he could speak of concerning the family back in Konoha, "_I_ will start the next war. But it will be over paper," he said. "Won't that be brutal…" knowing it would not.

With the stuff safe in his pocket on the inside of his coat, the plain-clothes man traveled to south-eastern Taki, a dangerous place for a leaf ninja, even more after twilight, when the only undercover movement could occur during that precious time. And this message entailed instructions for the head of a certain manufacturing company producing normally fabrics and textiles to the northern lands, but this was for the background operations. In weapons. Seals, kunai, and the like, especially seals used in traps, blockades, and any number of situations. The pickup location was changing again, as it did frequently, giving the need for good and clear lines of communication. So with the coded letter, Harou arrived at a fine Taki tavern that evening, and Harou always admired them. A fountain or two usually stood in front or at opposite ends of the door, after the country's own namesake, and the larger meant the more grandiose. But this hold out was small, compared to the others, only one medium size fountain sat out in front, with a grey concrete edge and soft-falling water. Harou had seen no pursuers in his journey, and the iwa shinobi scattered between towns had not paid any attention to him. So after a civilian's pause, the shinobi waked inside, and a steward met him promptly.

"Yes, I will be taking a table," Harou answered. "I am here to meet someone."

"I see sir, I see…" the steward responded in agitation as if he rejected the notion, "Help yourself sir," he said bitterly, then he quickly raced for the lead foyer to see another young couple in. Harou shook his head and walked through the open glass doors off the entrance into a moderate-sized bar with yellow lighting and pictures of sailboats lining the white walls. The theme was northeastern nautical, and Harou was well accustomed to seeing it. This place had even gone so far as to hang brown rope around the top corners over white crowned molding, and brown wainscoting raise like a picket fence around the space, blending itself in with the sea of brown tables and chairs. Carnations stood in vases in the center of the tables like pink lilies above brown water. Harou looked past then, seeing no one remotely resembling Takahashi, until he came across the face of a young woman, staring at him curiously, as he had just entered. She wore a quizzical brow in a stunning black dress. He looked away only to return and find she did not move her eyes. Feeling a little provoked like the steward in the anteroom, Harou seemed forced to inquire, and inquire he did.

"Miss?" He said over her table near the wainscoting.

"Hello," she spoke in a civilian's tone, "…Are you Harou Nekai?"

"I am," he answered, surprised. "Though, if you are going to arrest me, I'd at least like a charge. Was it drunkenness again? Oh dear. I do not even drink."

She laughed a little, awkwardly, "Oh no, I'm from the, ah…Higashi, company," she lowered her voice even more strangely like she had never waited like this before.

Subtly surprised, Harou sat opposite her, "I figured that from the moment you said my name. A woman?" he said openly. "They sent a _woman_?"

The blonde-haired woman eyed him peculiarly, "Is there something so wrong with that?"

"No," he answered innocently.

"Well, excuse my gender Mr Nekai, but I have worked for the company many years now—granted, it was off an on at one point as a consultant, but I have a letter from Takahashi if you do not believe me."

Though Harou possessed the instinct toward cooperation, sensing her honesty, he asked for the note anyway just as the young dark-skinned waiter came near and Harou asked for water only.

"You really don't drink, do you?" He looked up from the paper as she said this, and he glanced at her own glass. "Neither do I," she said.

"Oh," Harou refolded the letter. "Well. Seeing as that's Takahashi's writing, even if an Uchiha could have duplicated it, I believe you are a faithful, all but mysterious employee whom I have never seen before, and I thus trade you that note, for this one…" He gave it to her, and she put it inside her brown purse. "I can also escort you—" The waiter returned and set down the tall cold glass and Harou nodded—"To the big man himself, if you wish…" He eyed her over dubiously. "In fact. I _should_ escort you," he decided. "I don't believe you should be out alone."

"Thank you," her burgundy lips smiled pleasantly.

Harou paused—"And I hope you don't mind me asking, but how old are you?"

"Thirty-six. Why?"

He shrugged and drank. "You merely look quite young," he mumbled afterward.

"Oh?" she smiled; her vanity flattered unexpectedly.

"Oh." he responded affirmatively. Her straw blonde hair was cut to her shoulder, trailing in permed wavy locks around a strong face—high cheekbones, straight and strong chin, and a handsome pair of dark brown eyes under a thin, swift brow. She wore small silver earrings and a dark gray shawl over her shoulders. The slenderness of her body, and the tallness of her back suggested she was about his own height, five eight or nine, tall and intelligent looking.

"And how old are you, Mr Nekai?"

"I am five years off of fifty, and yet I feel as if I'm seventy."

"Oh," she said pitifully, "I'm sorry to hear that. You don't look it at all, forty-five _or_ seventy."

He began to grin, and he seldom did that but for the cause of irony—"Did Takahashi really not warn you about me?"

She cocked her head askance like she had two answers waiting for her, but she smiled oddly and answered, "He said…you were unlike men of your trade. Very stoic, short with words, and he described you to me. He said…and I quote you 'were born for another era'."

"Oh," Harou smiled. He nodded shortly, and glanced around the place, unconsciously exhibiting his traits.

"Do you believe you were born for another era?" she pursued inquisitively.

He thought for a second. "No…because if I were, I would have been born in it."

"I think that way too. What's happened, has happened…Are you ready to leave now?" she said curiously, unconsciously reading his thoughts after a long pause. When he shrugged around the answer a normal civilian would not do, she rested her elbows on the table comfortably, and her head on her hands—"You…don't talk much, do you?"

He took a moment to answer. "No. I do not."

"Why?"

He shook his head. "Do you want to know," he said suddenly, speaking without thinking at odd times as he sometimes did, "what would satisfy me? Hm? An entire _island_, to myself. Peace and bloody quiet, that's what. The ghosts can do with me as they wish. Hell. Hashirama could come back and torture me all he wants, just so long as I am alone."

She retracted to her original position, after scanning his indignant hazel brown eyes. His hair was not going grey yet—at least not totally, but much of the light brown that had been in it was fading to a dark blonde. "Just sometimes…I wouldn't mind an island like that," she said soon after he finished. "But I don't want to be alone," she resumed after a pause. "Not when there are handsome forty-something men around."

Harou blinked dumbly, and he looked around, almost to see if she were referring to anybody but him. "...Excuse me?" he finally blurted.

She grinned softly.

Harou scoffed. He bit back an insult.

"Forgive me," she smiled. "It was only a compliment. You have a very handsome face, even if you want to be a recluse."

Again, he sat there and took it, like the over-worked and easily agitated steward up front. "Next thing you know…" he suddenly trailed from his original thought. Something in her manner, her teasing, pointed conversation reminded him of Saru-Shin. Quickly he stopped whatever his supposition was. And when her face leaned in, he said, "Nothing. I am a single man. And I wish to remain that way—"

"Have you always been single?"

"Since the Kusa River Line," he admitted with a glint of steel in his down-turned, nearly hooded eyes. "And that was a very long time ago," He drank the cold water, and continued feeling hot. He glanced upward. The fans were working, but he couldn't feel any draft whatsoever.

"Kusa?" she said. "Are you—Were you born there?"

"In papers only I suppose," he glanced downward. He did not mean to say anything more, but her silence unnerved him unlike anything had affected him before. "I arrived in Konoha when I was still a child."

She smiled, "I was born here in Taki, but I have lived in Konoha since I was twelve."

Harou found himself nodding his head. He stopped this motion and felt like hitting himself for being so remarkably frank with her. He did not even know her name, save her loyalties.

"Well," she said swiftly, "Shall we go now?"

He began to nod his head shortly.

.

She sighed a small breath of relief as they exited. She tied her shawl around her in response to the cool night—Harou offered her his thin grey jacket, but she politely refused. "At least now," she added, "We may talk freely."

Harou smiled grimly in his reticence.

"What?"

"…Nothing," he finally managed to say. Perhaps it was the fact that he rarely talked to women, and never in this context. "What?" she said again with a hint of indignance. "Oh, I'm sorry," she said as he maintained silence while walking beside her. "You don't talk. I remember now. Fine. I will do the talking."

"Quietly," he inserted.

"Quietly," she agreed. "What made you leave Kusa?"

"That's it," he stopped on the road north. "I can deliver the damn letter myself without the likes of you, Miss…Miss…"

"…Satoya, Arisu."

"Miss…_Satoya_," Harou held out his hand, wanting.

She met him firmly in the eyes. "What kind of shinobi are you, really?"

"The kind who works _alone_," he said firmly. "I do not socialize, and I do not make small talk. And I will not be spoken to in that inquisitive manner."

She cocked her head, "Are _you_ a tsuchi policeman?"

"What?"

"A tsuchi spy. An iwa man. Lord in Heaven sir—one would think you already have a house and home on that island of yours!"

Harou verbally stepped back and changed his tone. "All right. I apologize…for my bluntness."

She grinned lopsidedly—"Just answer me this, shinobi—am I the first woman you have ever conversed with?" His moment of speechlessness led her to add, "Were you ever aware women _existed?"_

After having his mouth open for some time, he closed it again abruptly.

"Well?" She waited for her answer.

He opened and closed the faculty then in bewilderment. "You…have some nerve."

She grinned again. "Women have nerve," she murmured. "I had no idea," she said to herself, "I had absolutely no idea there were men like you."

He began to glare at her. "I prefer to do my duty in my own way. Now if you don't mind, that message must be delivered."

She began walking, and stifled a laugh, causing Harou to clench his fists and follow. "I _have_ talked to women before," he said calmly. "Perhaps it's just you. Perhaps it is just tension. I haven't had a break in over a year, and the last, lasted exactly five days on a one-way ticket to northern kumo with nothing to do but keep awake and 'keep sharp'. It was the worst five days of my life with a captain and crew who spoke only in metaphors and lived on mango. I never want to see that fruit again in my lifetime. I think Nidai did that to me on purpose. I thanked him anyway," Harou smiled deviously to himself. "The man was already dead before I could deliver the letter. Damn odd squalor of a place hidden along the river… The captain offered me a ride back," Harou smiled, "So yes. Maybe it's the tension that has me riled up that this whole bloody thing is almost over."

"Is it? Will it be over, do you know?"

"It will."

"And so…whatever will you do when it _is_ over?"

Harou eyed her. "Never talk to women again, for starters. I should think that was obvious."

The two finally shared a sly smile together in levity.

"Have you…If you don't mind me asking…Have you never gone on a date?"

"I have gone on many dates for the hokage," he told her. "But none with…a woman," he sounded the last word purposefully as if it were foreign to him.

She smiled, "Then, would you mind going out with me? When this is all over? Unless I irritate you too much."

All of a sudden, he eyed her strangely. A glint of starlight sparkled in her dark brown eyes, and the blue shadows exemplified the rigidness, but also the quiet meekness of her face and features. She was a handsome woman at that, and for once in his life, Harou did not know what to say.

"Think about it," she supplied. "That's all I would ask."

Harou did not think she truly suspected what a question it was for him. He associated himself with no one, except for his external ghosts. Like a traveling nomad, he roamed for his work, meeting interesting people such as she, but not once did he actively pursue any of them in a social relationship. Harou was simply not built for it. The ghosts—those damn pervading ghosts and memories were all he had to guide him one way or the other whenever he had a song enter into his mind or a certain fancy in his heart, or see a shadow, moving through the trees. "Is that you captain?" he began to get into the habit of saying to himself, quietly sometimes out on the road. "What do you want to do today? Scouting? Mapping? Spying? How pleasant. Good-bye now." But Harou seldom conversed with Monkey. The song usually played out indecipherably in his mind. What the hell did ravens have do with him? Monkey never used metaphors—why start now? It was the same way with Karada, who never used stealthy shadows against the trees, nor backhanded ways to get his attention. So what did they want? Figuratively, it was all Harou's doing. And the metaphors, memories, suggested Harou say yes. But, he said nothing.

"It's too far to travel in one night," the woman spoke up.

"Yes," he nodded. "I know. But we are making the journey anyway."

The look on her face was priceless.

"This way," the ninja commanded, and he led her off the path, and into the sparse forestland Taki uprooted every now and then between it's river currents. "Walk softly," he instructed. "Best you can."

She was as silent as a mouse, trailing just behind him. "How can you tell were you are going?" she whispered.

The sudden temptation to tell her Karada whispered in his ear the way was great, but Harou Nekai over came it. "Yes," he said instead. "For all you still know, I'm an iwa man leading you to a holding house. But I maintain I am pretty well fluent in tsuchi, Kusa, Taki, and most of the empty places in between. I have walked these lands all my life—all my career. I have a photographic memory." And too, he thought, Karada taught he and Saru-Shin both how to read the stars and the land.

"Oh," she said softly, "How fortunate."

She eyed him from the back for a while and smiled in some small wave of admiration until he stopped abruptly. Immediately, she opened her ears where she last stepped, hearing absolutely nothing. The next thing she knew she was on her knees, opening her eyes from a strong genjutsu he dispelled. He took his hand off her shoulder and after she blinked her eyes again, there was a tall earth wall shielding fire so hot and bright she finally began to register the immediate danger. Then, the wall enclosed around her on all sides and he disappeared from view, leaving her in the literal dark for more than forty seconds. "Nekai-san…?" she whispered. She could not hear anything for what felt like the longest time. "Ne…"

The walls receded, and there he stood—and there behind him, a man laid, face down, wearing a brown iwa vest. She stood very slowly, staring up at the shinobi's face. "Come—I will carry you," he said. Next moment, she was flying, never really knowing how strong or fast these Konohagakure men were. She lost her breath a dozen times, but after a while, he slowed, and stopped, one foot, and one knee on the branch while she kneeled beside him, finding an upper branch that her left hand could reach for extra assurance she would not fall. The forest line ended. And before them, what else, but a small waterfall dropped from the small river, and there was the town, on the other side of the river, distant, but shining like a dim lantern.

She finally looked him over, head to toe. She gasped suddenly—his left shoulder, the fabric of his black sleeve was completely damp and bloodied. "Nekai—are you all right?"

Before he could answer, she let go of the branch and she pulled away the fabric to inspect the wound herself. "It's fine," he disavowed in a firm voice, and instantly, she was aware of the heavy sweat across his brow.

"Do you…have an antidote, with you…?"

Harou hesitated. "No," he answered. "But that's not important—"

"Like Hell," she muttered and Miss Satoya took off her shawl, and looked at her hand. Harou looked at her quizzically.

"We moved to Konoha for my father's work. My older brother went into service, and studied a few years into medical ninjutsu. He tried to teach me, but I'm afraid I wasn't much good," A small glow encircled her right hand and she laid it overtop his shoulder.

"Medical ninjutsu," he sounded in quiet disbelief.

"I'm better at stitches—civilian doctoring," she corrected.

"Forget it," he said. "It may have all bled out already. That's what I was hoping for anyway."

She stared at him for a moment, white-faced. "…What?"

"Forget it," he said again, but the firmness he'd hoped to inject in his voice was replaced with weakness. The iwa ninja had been someone off a four or eight man cell, a rogue man keeping checks on all the areas. Harou wasn't sure if he was recognized by face or by chakra—he concluded it must have been chakra now that he had time to think. Regardless, it wasn't important now. Harou turned to her just as she was tying her shawl around his arm. "There is a man. In this town," he told her quietly, "That can give you some protection," Harou pulled out his only black kunai, bearing his surname in Katakana, he flipped it and offered her the hilt. "Take it. He will know it's genuine," She tried to object but Harou stopped her as soon as she opened her mouth. He took her right hand and laid the hilt in it, and closed her fingers around it. "Take it and go. You can deliver the letter on your own now."

She stared at him, and the blade, respectively. "But—_you_," she finally stammered.

"I was recognized," he interjected while his vision sudden began to be blurry. The poison was taking effect. "You will not. Especially not with that sort of attractive dress on."

"Oh it's attractive?" she inserted.

He paused. "Definitely," Slowly, he removed his grey vest, and put it around her. He took chakra in his left hand and transformed it's appearance to a long gray shawl—no blood marred it's soft fabric. "There," Harou said. "He lives on the northwest end, near an old grove of apple trees—you will see the blooms. You may have to knock on his door hard. He's grey-haired, and blue-eyed. Now go."

"I…am not just going to leave you."

"Go or I'm pushing you," he glanced at her firmly.

She stared him down, resolutely.

After a second, he looked away, staring at the grass, completely numb. "I'm going to…hang back, for that squad…It will know their man is missing…and…"

"You'll get yourself captured!"

"Not if they're my comrades…" he smiled facetiously. Harou closed his eyes—"Go," he said again. His breathing was off, his center was off—he swayed there for a second in sudden vertigo. The woman was positively alarmed. She caught him just as he swayed in the wrong direction.

.

Satoya Arisu chose to stake awake, despite her fatigue.

"Suit yourself," Nagira said, taking a drink of a liquid shielded curiously by the shiny metal of a narrow flask. His hair was a steel grey. "But he's damn strange."

"Yes," she looked up and smiled heartily. "I know. Have you known him long…?" she added the question when the silence unnerved her hope the leaf ninja would recover.

The older man nodded his head, and from a closet on the right hand side, he shuffled through the contents and pulled a wine-red cloak. "I'm gonna raid the hospital," he said. "If he starts vomiting, or…something…take him outside, would you? I just cleaned the floor." She nodded oddly. "He's…" Nagira's old blue eyes glazed over the brown haired man and Nagira sighed. "Well. I'll just say this. If Karada had not found that boy, Lord only knows where he'd be now. Maybe even the iwa army, or suna. It's a wonder Harou is still here at all."

Her questions, surfacing all at once went unanswered until Nagira returned thirty minutes later. She volunteered to service the invalid, explaining her spontaneous medical history. "You said…it's a wonder he's still here—what did you mean by that?"

Nagira got up off the wood chair and fetched a cigarette from a pack on a dresser. "Do you mind?" he asked before he lit. She shook her head and he sat down again after a pause. He sighed. "Harou has…had…_has_, a very troubled state of mind. Even now I'm not sure he's with it. He has, well, tried to commit suicide—several different times, in different ways. Besides the first, I'm pretty sure the other one, or two may have been in tsuchi. I don't have solid proof. But that's why the Senju watch him like a hawk," Nagira smiled grimly. "They do me, too, since we all knew Karada. It's a brotherhood, of sorts. You just had to have been young, to join…" Nagira grinned, "Even if we haven't talked to each other or seen each other in years. Since…I think since Saru-Shin died, it's been that way—especially for Harou. He was the youngest, next to Monkey, of course. And I almost feel sorry for him," he said, watching Harou's motionless form. "He was just tolerable back then, when Saru-Shin came along. Now," he took another long smoke, reminiscing, "Now Harou is the same as he ever was. Reticent. Depressing. And a pathetic excuse for a shinobi."

She wrapped this silence around her, processing it in so many ways. "Karada—I don't know him."

"Most people don't," Nagira smiled faintly, with a warm sparkle coming into his eyes. "He was a great man," Nagira said heartily. "A real kindred heart. Monkey too," the old man nodded, "Monkey too. He was like Harou. An apprentice, two of the last 'next to Chokichi," Nagira explained.

"Oh…" she said simply. "I see."

Nagira grinned suddenly, glancing to her and Nekai. "Granted, a lot of _my_ friends are dead and gone, but a true shinobi is more than the sum of those losses—no, a _man_ is more than that. It's all about heart," he told her, touching the top left of his chest. "That's the only damn thing Karada tried to tell those kids. Only Monkey listened," Nagira grinned softly again, with a soft, sad chuckle behind it. He glanced back to Harou, then to Miss Satoya. "They both followed the same principle," Nagira explained, "But in different ways—different natures. Harou…well I can't say I know where he left his heart, as a child, or adolescent, or even if he had one to start with. I shouldn't be that cruel, but I'd really like to know. Harou never tells. And when he did tell Karada, it was…obligatory. But, he hasn't peeped a word since, and he never will. Keeps his demons to himself. He walks through life—worst of all walks through _duty_ like a sleeping man… He hasn't changed."

"He saved my life," she felt obliged to interject.

"Ah," He re-lit the stubborn end and took a moment to answer her in proper. "What altruism," Nagira decided and grinned, then he glanced at her. "Harou does the necessary thing. That is not the same as saying there was heart or conscience behind it."

She flinched a little at his words. "That's a little harsh."

He shrugged. "It is the truth," he said simply. "His heart, doesn't care. Not one damn's worth of…" he trailed as if there was one fleeting exception: that was the fleeting thought of Kanae, who was the one to break the news to the taki man Karada was dead. Kanae was there, remembering it all in vivid detail. The night was cold, and Harou protected Saru-Shin from the _ukenin_. "He was injured very badly. Very severely in fact."

Nagira stood there in shock, in repose, "…Seriously?"

"Seriously," Kanae smiled faintly behind his shades. "What made it more promising was that his first words, after he was revived by Hashirama himself, were for Saru; Harou asked him if he was all right."

Nagira gave a swift jump on his feet with unbridled glee. "Oh that happy little child!" he exclaimed.

Nagira now shook his head and smiled. That Harou was gone. Like a spirit, a soul, it died after Saru's team returned from Mist.

Arisu glanced over—and she straightened suddenly in surprise—Harou's brow had rose slightly and fallen—just as Nagira noticed her, he too witnessed Harou Nekai's eyelids part, and his hazel eyes glanced over the little wooden room slowly.

"Well well…" Nagira murmured observantly.

"Nekai-san!" Arisu smiled. She touched his hand. "Hello," she smiled warmly. "You're going to be all right."

Nagira was about to put out the cigarette. He stood, waving the end over the circular glass on top of his tall bureau, and he eyed Harou, as he seemed like he was about to try to say something. And in a quiet voice, Nagira heard him ask the blonde-haired woman, "Are you…all right?" He may have even added her name had his left eye not winced from the pain.

Nagira dropped the cigarette accidentally on the floor, "Holy shit," he murmured in a deep voice, which made the woman jump from nervousness. She saw Nagira, staring at the leaf ninja in disbelief. "Well…" he murmured.

Nagira bent over, picked up his fixation, dropped it in the glass tray, and picked up the rest of the pack. He tacitly elected to smoke outside and think, as he often did. "Holy shit," he murmured again, and began laughing heartily. "How bout that," he smiled strangely; he stared at the orange flame before it flickered out.

.

"What did he tell you?"

"Nothing."

Harou slowly smirked. After three short days he could pull himself to a sitting position on the little black cot with weary difficulty. "Well. Regardless. There's not much time left to deliver that letter…"

She twisted a smile reluctantly. "Actually…Nagira offered to help…Takahashi got it last night. He did not want you to know," she said after Harou gave a look of surprise and almost indignation. "Nagira didn't," she spoke quietly, "But I did. You may escort me back to Konoha now, if you've nothing else to do."

"Oh really?" he said.

"Really. As soon as you're all well."

"Ah," Harou stared at the floor, feeling as if he'd just been punched in his gut several times. "I see. Well. How about now. Clearly I cannot trespass upon Nagira's good will."

"He says you may stay here for as long as you need to."

"Nagira says many things. Not one of them has been a term of endearment to me," Harou was reaching for the frame for support to stand. Before she could stop him, he'd hauled himself upright, and she found herself standing up to support his other arm. He swayed there for a moment, slightly dizzy. "Perhaps," she said, "You should—take it slow."

"No," he said after a pause. "I can cope."

He moved his bare feet and began to walk; he moved for the door.

.

The war soon ended, in Konoha's favor among the Allied forces, and Harou found himself carrying more messages than ever. He elected to do it, having nothing else to do. Quite a few of them were letters of simple gratitude, written by Nidaime or members of the council or generals to various shinobi groups out on the rim or companies. The rest were 'keep watch' and 'keep secure' letters. Indeed keep watch. Keep alert. Keep safe. May all the bloodshed never happen again. Harou was shuffled with these letters for the next six months straight until he was temporarily transferred to guard duty in escort of a local land of fire daimyo along with twenty-four others. It was near Nobu, a large commerce and trade area. Harou was walking alongside the gleaming eastern white and red chariot half asleep until he glanced up ahead beyond the other silent heads and noticed a large dappled grey horse with a black mane and tail side-stepping uneasily along the same road that the great white cart traveled down. A tall grey-haired man snatched the halter, intending to pull him away to let the daimyo pass, but the horse's head continued bobbing up and down nervously, and then, suddenly without warning, he darted across the road with a skittish and large leap, and the empty wagon attached behind him overturned—a small woman landed out nearly a second before it happened. She was the first to take hold of the halter again, and the horse began to calm incrementally, still stepping while the wagon prevented him from moving. Her swiftness (and smallness) preceded her. She looked so incredibly young, Harou squinted better to see, realizing she was a woman, and not a child, and the man in the blue robe cropped to his navy knees—Harou recognized him.

"I say!" the young daimyo poked his head out the curtained window as his chestnut bay horses had stopped. "What's this hold up?"

One of the leaf ninja, Harou saw, approached the grey-haired man to confront him—never keeping his hazel eyes off him; Harou broke formation to get a better look. "Get out of my way!" the grey-haired man boomed to the ninja indignantly after the leader merely asked him if he needed help. "Go!"

"Sir…?"

"Coushander…" his wife called his name. "Forgive us," she said apologetically to the ninja, as she continued coaxing the big grey horse, snorting some relief over her shoulder while he continued stepping in place skittishly.

Hatake Coushander tried turning the wagon over on his own, but his left arm suddenly failed him; his right shoulder then proved he could not do it alone. The lead ninja moved in regardless of the civilian's near violent protests. Coushander's face turned beat red. "Get out!" he shouted at him once the wagon was upright and straight. His demeanor continued spooking the horse to no end. "Get out! Go! We'll be on our way!" Harou could scarcely believe the scene. He said as much aloud to himself.

"_Kousa_…" Matsuko scolded him as she was able to turn the horse around to the east, to bring both him and the wagon off the road. Her husband said nothing, and Harou could no longer hear what she had to say next in a quiet tone when the lead ninja stared at Harou, "And your problem?"

Harou looked the way of the voice, broken from the sight, and noticed he was being stared at. Harou said nothing, and returned to his position reluctantly. "Carry on…" the lead ninja told the driver.

Harou watched Saru's younger brother until they passed the area. He seemed to be ignoring both the ninja and his wife's small words. "I don't believe it," he murmured again with a smile and then a frown, as he noticed the small shavings of wheat, like sawdust, on the road and in the grass.

.

After the duties were completed for security, Harou unfolded the note Satoya Arisu left him. It was, simply, her address. He sat there, in his own small apartment in the leaf ninja village (it was the only residence he had apart from the open road) and he rolled the idea over and over in his mind like a restless banshee deciding which backyard forest to haunt for the night. The image of her darling, strong face in his mind was playing tricks with his affections. Or was it his affection creating her the image of her face in his mind…? She was a beautiful woman, of that he was almost certain. He'd said so. Her face was like that of an old actress, rigid, but sweet and temperament very knowledgeable, and with some sagacity and poise she carried herself along the currents of life as a single woman. The fact that she had initially insulted him also piqued his mind, his interest almost like a mosquito bite. Monkey would have told him to scratch, and Karada, in a one week getaway would have gone home to his woman for Lord knows what reason. Harou wasn't exactly familiar with love, let alone the romantic kind.

But, like anything that requires second thoughts, he went to see her, that weekend. He stuffed the note back in his pant pocket, pulled on a vest, and headed out the door. "Oh! You were not here this time for less than a second Mr Harou!" the landlady exclaimed with a large grin when she saw him pass.

"No," he offered a faint smile, amused enough to say something more to her, "I'm on break. And I didn't know what to do with myself in there."

"Oh pity!" she said. "Have a nice time."

"Thank you," he smiled.

So like a ghost inhabiting one of the top floors, paying rent for a place he inhabited seldom each year, he exited again, leaving for the north west. It was not far out, and with any luck, his sudden appearance might be corrected with a perfectly logical question, "How are you doing? May I take you out to dinner?" He knew the place well, and since she lived near there, she would probably know it, giving them at least something in common.

So Harou got there in good time, and he saw the house. It was in a rural suburb, he houses were all scattered, with large untamable woods between lots, and the road was dirt. Her home was surrounded by woodland by itself on all sides; there was nothing else but oaks, poplars, birch, and old grey-skinned maple. The home had a large deck in front, but otherwise looked the smallest, like the three room cabin Nagira owned in Taki. Harou knocked for a few minutes…but no one was home.

Disappointed, he headed for the restaurant, and lo and behold, to his great surprise, he recognized the blonde-haired woman sitting alone again, which both relieved him and made him inexplicably nervous. She was not as dressed to the nines as she had been in Taki. She wore a thin light blue sweater above a wavy black skirt that fell just below her knees. Her makeup, the lip color was not so intense nor smoky, nor did she wear mascara. Her look was very natural and plain, and he liked it better.

Hiding a small smile, Harou began to walk forward, near the north wall. "Is this seat taken?"

She looked up, gasped, and smiled broadly. "No! Not at all! I was just thinking about you! Thank you—or were you just stopping by, delivering another letter…?"

"Well, no, not really." He sat. "I came…because of you," he admitted slowly, "So I suppose I am delivering myself for once."

She laughed.

"How are you?"

"Oh, fine, fine, and you? Did you recover?"

"Yes," he nodded.

She grinned in a great sense of confusion and mirth—she did not expect to see him here at all, even though she wanted to. She was greatly surprised he would make this move. "Are you all right—Did you really come to see me?" she asked after he ordered.

The two were sharing odd smiles once again. "Did you not want to see me?"

"No. I did. But why did you?"

"Why did you come to this restaurant?"

"I was hungry," she said, and she poked the remnants of her salad she had been finishing. "Because this place serves good food. And not in sloven manner. Why did you?"

He took a deep breath before he answered, "Because it may surprise you, but I do hold out hope, and I had hoped I might see you here. I used to stop at this place before I went on to the village," he explained, straightening a knife idly, "Not often, since I rarely stay there—in fact I keep nothing in that kitchen. I have been a currier, primarily, since I joined with Hashirama's village after Karada died."

"You live inside the shinobi village?"

"A small apartment, yes."

A warm smile continued to bloom on her face every so often like an odd flower, and it widened in the quick silence. He shared a little of it as well, carrying it much more awkwardly than she, and he remarked, "I haven't been here in a while—did they build on? I don't remember it this large."

"Yes," she confirmed, "They added onto the east wing."

"Did a good job."

She nodded again.

During the next odd silence, she was smiling, faintly, looking over the wood and the walls, and he looked over her, again, so long as she didn't catch his eyes staring. He was nearly transfixed by her unique beauty. It was until she finally caught him staring she smiled more strangely, "Is there something wrong?"

"No," he said, caught in an awkward position he'd never been before. "You look lovely."

Her cheeks colored very pink, almost a carmine red. "Thank you."

"You do," he nodded again. He had no experience, but it seemed to him beauty was a way of power with women, not that he was seeking a dictatorship. Instead, Harou was beginning to regret he'd come, never feeling uneasiness like this before.

"Well I like how you look, too, very smart."

He had grabbed a slate blue vest saved for funerals of generals and jounin he was sometimes obligated to attend. Regardless, it was his best vest after he shook all the dust off of it. "This old thing…? Ha…"

The waiter came again finally, with his dish, anchoring him down to the table, effectively, in the restaurant. She ordered ice cream for herself, and once the waiter was gone, she asked in a low, quiet voice, "Would this be your first date, Nekai-san?"

"Just Harou. And yes, in answer to your question," he said slowly.

She stared back at him, again, both intrigued and confused with a fixed smile upon her face, "Have you always served?" she asked, implying the service.

He nodded. "I learned it…at a young age. He was…like an older brother to me, if not by blood…I was raised by a very kind Konoha family near the western border."

"You—Forgive me—you left…?"

"I was a runaway," he said quietly. "It probably explains why I'm a currier, roaming from place to place all the time. I live out on the roads. It's strange, but it feels like home to me," he admitted. Was her nature receptive to admissions, he wondered. They endured a light silence for a moment until he gazed at her and said, "This can't be _your_ first date."

"Oh no," she said, and her smile quickly disappeared. "But I wish it were. I wish I had met you first."

"First?" he said, and the waiter, with remarkable timing only given those of omniscient spirit, brought her the vanilla topped with fudge.

She smiled ironically just when he was about to apologize for asking. He listened to her explain as she poked it from time to time, the sweetness counter-balancing her tragedy, "I was married. Once. When I was twenty-six. I thought it would be for forever," she said regretfully, "And maybe it was, for a little while. It lasted seven years," The ice cream, perhaps allowed her to continue. "Seven years. He was…well somewhere in year five, I knew it wasn't right, it wasn't all it could be, and foolishly I continued, blindly. I never suspected it until he came home wasted one night, and then a week later, he let slip, purposefully, he had to see his 'woman'. It broke my heart to realize he didn't mean me," She kept her eyes mostly on the swirl of black and white color. "But he was definitely smarter than I thought—he got to the courts long before I did. And believe me," her eyes widened, "_That_ happened so…very…fast…He got the house, the money, everything you could think of, worst of all my dignity. My love, my faith…" she sighed, cold numbing her emotion somewhat. "So yes, he took everything from me, and I still have not recovered. It has only been three years—almost four.

"I stayed with my mother," she picked up. And got on with that Taki company I worked for. Bought my house on a foreclosure just about three months before I first met you," she quieted then, as if all the strength left her.

"…I'm so sorry," he said after a decent pause.

Arisu smiled quickly, and the heavy silence resumed at a slow and crawling pace until he raised his head. "Satoya—that's your name."

"Oh of course," she suddenly grinned, "He can keep _his_ name," she smiled. "I will have nothing to do with it."

"You're very strong," he observed.

"I wish," she said wistfully. "I've come a long ways—there is still so much longer to go."

He nodded, "I understand."

She gazed at him as he looked away, and staring into his hazel eyes, she felt the words were very genuine. In light of what Nagira told her, he must have seen and gone through more troubles than her. In fact, she had learned much from him here and there, back in revealing waterfall. He was a mover, and she doubted he would chain himself anywhere else but the open road (or the dense, dark Konoha forest). So that train of thought led her to her next question she had already half-answered, "Would you ever marry, Harou-san?"

After a slight surprise, he began to smile, color coming to his pale face now suddenly. He took a moment to answer, a void which the waiter entered into, stealing the empty dishes, with the tacit promise of a bill soon to follow. "…No," Harou said. "I never planned on it," His decidedness in youth made him smile now. If he could choose any woman in the world right then for a wife, it would be her. Blonde hair, dark brown eyes…He stuttered as he noticed her continuing her steady, intelligent gaze. "I don't know," he said suddenly, as if she knew his original answer was neither so concrete, nor important anymore. "I don't know."

"Well," she leaned back, as if aware she was being overly suggestive. "She would be very lucky," Ms Satoya said kindly and Harou met it with a self-deprecating smile. It was quick. He shook his head.

"You don't take compliments very well, do you?"

"Compliments? I haven't been social enough in my life to earn them," he cleared his throat—"I've never talked this long before—how dumb is that," he said with difficulty present in his voice.

"We're all built differently. It's not necessarily a fault."

The waiter returned, and Harou paid the bill for her. Since he went up to the back counter to pay, he returned and she stood—"Would you mind carrying on outside?" He made no objection. In fact he said the first thought that came into his mind, "You should continue to have escort." And that made her laugh.

"Thank you, again," she said as they stepped outside in the night. The sky, like a wide navy ribbon between the forests, was dotted with silver stars.

"It's nothing," he said quietly.

"You made my evening really nice," she smiled. "I really like you. I wouldn't mind seeing you again."

He glanced at her, and looked askance as they walked around the corner of the place; there was a hedge of spirea near the pavement. "I guess you've never met anyone special," she continued quietly, "But I have, or at least I thought I did, so I do know the feeling," She paused for a moment, not toward indecision, but toward the night silence. "And I feel it with you."

It seemed she had pounced on him like a stealthy cat does a mouse, or a mad Uchiha did with a Senju…Then again, he thought, he had tempted this blonde feline, showing his face in the first place.

"I'm not ready yet," she eased his sudden anxiety with her honest state, "But I'd really like to continue," There, she finished. It was up to him now, and in truth, "I have no objections," he said after a while, and his honesty made her giggle.

"What?"

"You 'have no objections'," she repeated. "I'm sorry," she apologized, "You're very proper."

"Do you take offence?"

"No. I like it. You're so different, than anyone I have ever met before. I know you've been through much—I meant what I said about that lucky girl."

Harou retreated to silence, and she took it the wrong way, "Did I say something wrong?"

"No," he said. "But she's not a girl…She is an attractive young woman," he admitted.

"Oh…?" she encouraged him.

Harou looked away. He couldn't put into words the experience he had so far. "Thank you," he said simply. "For being in that restaurant," he added when she looked at him oddly.

"The night isn't over yet," she smiled evenly, a sparkle hidden in her eyes.

"I think it is," Harou returned. "I can escort you home, and that's all."

"I understand," she smiled kindly. "I'd like that that."

.

"Even for love, you would do it too," Monkey's cheery voice said in Harou's mind. It was like a distraction, the biggest one Harou Nekai had faced in his entire lifetime. He did not know what to do. Should he admit to either her or himself he was madly in love with her? That was very fond of her? Affection? Romance? Madness? _What the hell?_

For months, their acquaintance grew, slowly but surely, and every day he seemed to think of her more than the last until he finally admitted to himself he had to do something about it. Something drastic. Something to either put end to it…or embrace it. Since she returned the interest and attentiveness…he settled on the latter, wouldn't Monkey be surprised! Harou couldn't believe what he was pondering himself. "Would you ask me to marry you, Harou-san?" she had brought up the notion first, perhaps with that extrasensory aspect of hers. It occurred in the moonlit walk of the stone garden, and his own imagination. "Yes," said that distant dream. Satoya stared at him, suddenly frozen with surprise—he guessed she had expected him to dodge the question.

"I…have been thinking," he said.

"Oh?"

He stopped, and she stopped walking with him. "This is not easy for me—Don't you dare laugh…" Harou began to smile when she couldn't keep it in, and her grin curled. "Don't…Hell. Would you…marry me?" Harou looked into her eyes, and she nodded. "Now…you have to be quite sure about that," he argued seriously to her grin.

"Why," she smiled playfully.

"Well…because."

"You are trying to find fault with yourself—no, you're trying to make _me_ find fault with you and I can find none."

"But, my reticence—"

"Is a queer trait of yours I like."

"And the duty—my duties…?"

"Means," she took hold of his hand, "I will wait up for you."

He was silenced. Completely. But rather than the heavy kind he was used to, it was a different kind of silence he couldn't quite put into words. Only actions, seemed appropriate. He drew her hand, and kissed the top of it. In turn, she flung her arms around him ecstatically—and tightly. "I love you, Harou Nekai," she smiled. "I love you," he said, feeling both terrified but honest, for once in his life. So, coming after a year, the forty-six year old conceded to the sacred vow…they were wed, he and Satoya Arisu.

…Nobody believed it.

.


	6. Hot Gets A Little Cold

Chapter 6  
_**Hot Gets A Little Cold**_

.

.

It was like magic. Maybe Monkey, or Sun WuKong would have called it so. His painted, grinning, happy young face, "So you say you'll never marry…" Young Nekai stiffened his neck, raising his chin indignantly. "But you would do it too, even for love," Monkey had said, wisely. Even for love. Even for this odd feeling of true love, Karada took a few weekends off now and then once in a while leaving Kanae in charge, where Karada went away to his lavender-eyed woman in the Konoha woods, and his children, whom Harou was positive were oblivious to every experience behind the strong and manly face. They only knew him to a word slightly different than 'sensei'. But even Harou was unaware of many facts of his captain's life. "I wish we knew. We should have asked," he told himself. Where then he discovered it was easier to get from others what Karada could never get from Harou. "I'm sorry," the Nekai said. The spell of secrecy was hardest to break, and in Harou's experience, the most terrifying. He worked himself up to the point of sickness and exhaustion over the slightest waver. "I will never tell," he used to tell himself. But in the end, it was a genuine tug of love, what else, that pushed him back the other way and did not judge him, did not ask questions, and did not surrender in the face and hands of weakness. It was like magic, and any good magician always keeps the secrets to herself.

Two years later, she claimed triumph over adversity—in her womb, of all paces. A baby boy was born that year, and Harou could scarcely believe it, wondering if this was how Karada's progeny happened until Harou reminded himself, gazing at the newborn's red face, he was supposed to have been watching Saru's children, should he have had those rambunctious toadstools… "Look," he has the shape of your eyes," Nekai Arisu smiled broadly. Sitting beside her, alone, on the hospital bed, he may have been sitting anywhere but inside his own skin. "He has your nose," Harou returned.

"Does he?" The mother smiled, scanning the baby's petite face over again with her adoring eyes. And as she looked at the sleeping child, Harou stared her. At thirty-nine, she was finally a mother, and he, two years from fifty, a surprised, happenstance father. He glanced away, suddenly disheartened by the fact she had progressed this fast, turned the page too soon to see what went beyond, or any other analogies the static man did not want to commit himself to. For a very long time—nearly all his life, no one, not even Monkey was as close to him as the woman came to be. It was a different kind of closeness, too, besting the confidentiality he had with Saru-Shin in more subtle ways than conversation. Glancing at her again was enough to drive him away again: stand him up, and look down upon her now.

She merely glanced at Harou, smiling warmly, at both he and his miracle baby child. "Dura Nekai," she said. "I was thinking. Dura Nekai sounds very good."

He discovered it didn't much matter to him. Harou shrugged and nodded without a word. Arisu looked over him again, and even though she'd just given birth the night before, she asked him, "Are you all right? Harou?" He looked paler than she. When he stumbled for an answer, she smiled, almost looking like a frown. "We're a family now," she said like it was a coy point of contention with him. "Husband, wife, child. He won't intrude upon us—what I mean is, we're still husband and wife."

His reticence genuinely preceded him.

She smiled, gazing back at the blonde-brown haired boy she named Dura. "I was…hoping to have more," she said. "But I know it was hard enough getting the first one."

He sighed deeply, to himself, and sat on the end of the bed near her feet. It seemed she was still the strength of the relationship, three years total in length, from courtship to now. He asked himself again and again why he wed her, and he asked himself now, and the confusion lasted less than a moment when the woman gave him a broad smile once more, and then looking back to the sleeping newborn, she traced a finger around his small face. The shinobi bit his tongue to keep him from saying they wouldn't have more. In truth, given a choice, Harou would have much rather had a girl…

.

When his break ended that season, he was back to wandering for letters, and he even stayed in the village a few times to correct the western maps of tsuchi, and some taki, some south Kumo in the shadowlands. Then, it was more messages, bound for more people he did not know, and socialized with only out of necessity. Then, he would return home: to her home, in the seclusion of the forestland of the land of fire, not exactly in a fairy-tale like woods, but the land did smell of cedar, like the air in tsuchi did, but without much balsam and fir. He continued to hold the doubt even a woman of her incredible patience would continue to put up with his nomadic, uncommunicative ways, but she did. She kissed her lonely man every time he returned like a stranger to a strange land. Most of the time, he was dead tired when he got there, taking off his shoes and heading for the bedroom as his final destination. She'd come in after an hour or two to either find him deep asleep, or half so much, when she'd wake him with another small kiss.

Seven years of this life, no more children came, to her loss. He actually found himself sorry for it for her sake, wondering why this vivid dream continued. As soon as he thought seriously it should all fall apart, a catalyst came, and it did. That year, the fifty-five year old was summoned by Nidai to deliver something special to the land of mist and fog, the same country Saru-Shin met his match, and there, met his death. "Will you be able to handle it?" said Nidai after the short briefing. "Yes Nidaime-sama. Thank you, for the chance," he answered.

Hashirama's younger brother continued to look upon him with inherent suspicion. "You are to go to the land of waves. Find any commercial ship, and tell them you simply delivering a letter. Do not tell them to whom."

Fighting back the indignant urge to ask if Nidai considered him stupid as well as unstable, Harou continued his stoic poise and nodded obediently, as he always did. "Yes sir."

"I mean it Harou. Do not waste a second."

"I never do," the ninja inserted.

"Granted. But my older brother worried about you."

"Will all due respect sir," Harou couldn't turn back now, when he paused in danger for a split second, "I have never done anything to compromise any mission—I have never stepped out of bounds, nor injure anyone. I have always carried out my duty," His record was clean.

"You may not have injured anyone as you say, but injury to yourself is equally as serious," Nidai paused, judging the effect of his pointed words. "When you crossed that line years ago, you crossed it all the way, and my brother did not tolerate people like you. He kept you on because every ninja we lost back then looked badly on us, especially with a young man of your nature, contemplating—no, ready to end your life."

Harou was contemplating walking out the door right about then, but he remained in place, and raised his chin a little, stiffening his old spine.

Nidaime sighed as if the man was wasting his time. "You're dismissed."

"Thank you," Harou said with a drop of shortness.

.

The next morning, he awoke at four, and was ready by five. His wife turned to kiss him, but he swatted the gesture away. "Harou?" she said softly, and he turned away from her swiftly. "Leave me be," he muttered.

Immediately, she knew something was wrong. "Harou, I don't want you to go without kissing me goodbye—you may be gone for a whole month, and I miss you already, dear," she turned him around successfully after he collected the message, the document in the inside pocket of his vest. His hazel eyes stared at the floor instead. She guided his chin up with her fingers, and the hard stare met her eyes. "…Please?" she smiled slyly after a moment.

He satisfied her request, and then he turned away. "I love you," she said. Harou said it back.

He made it to the docks in two hours, and there, he met the remnants of Kiri in the form of a very, very old wooden ship. Big and clumsy, it anchored in the last spot near the end of the wharf. Remembered the tsuchi man's story of the wandering ghost, Harou decided to walk down all the way to the end where he could feel the air become thick with distant voices. As Harou became aware of his own beating heart, his wandering thoughts picked up on a song, something Saru would have hummed. "…And in sun-shine the waters are sleeping…but me, and my true love with ne'er meet again…" Harou looked upon that mirror of the sea, and felt as if Saru's voice was humming those words now, somewhere over the deep blue water and the choppy waves. Harou looked in all directions, but the Monkey King must have been in his kingdom. With Keiko. "Lofty fool," Harou muttered. And then he did something rash, something swift: he boarded the vacant _Notsuhodo_, and found of all the crew, of all different eras, only one man was left.

.

Three weeks later, Harou returned.

.

A heart, an unsteady heart especially does not change over night. Given one more difficult mission soon after, Harou was left alone out on the north shore of tsuchi once more, and he waited again this time, but for a help, he knew would not be coming. Alone, he cried out with a broken heart, knowing no one in the world knew where he was. It was a trap left over from the first war, in an area he had not trod before. The pain of solitude covered him over almost as much as the pain of injury did, like dirt does a deep and empty grave, encasing him with thick, muffled walls on either side. Not a soul in the world knew his location, nor would they come after him, nor care should he wither there and die. Like the old ship captain said, there was no one left…to remember… "Karada," Harou cried out, like the namesake was sacred—the bond of comitatus always was. He would have never been forgotten had that contract still been in place. Harou began to laugh, beginning to realize what precious life he wasted back then—where were the ghosts when he needed them…?

.

"Karada," Harou whispered again in bed, recovering from the horror, the shock, a broken leg, and the perception no one knew the past. He continued on this way for weeks, speaking little, eating little, wallowing much, in sharp, abject despair piercing his soul more effectively than white handled kunai. It was the despair he pushed down for so long, rising around him now like an impenetrable fog. All he could feel was that painful emptiness invading his soul, and having conquered him long ago when Saru died, it was conquering once more, and having no will or reason for defenses, Harou may as well have opened a door and let it consume him. As soon as he returned on his own, he steadily began closing the door to his wife.

Wild with worry, she sat down to write late one night, and then she left: she commissioned a chuunin to deliver it. Returning, she found her husband without change. His listless stare continued to penetrate the walls and cabinets without sight nor care. "Dear," she said, stroking his hair, "Please don't be like this." There was nothing she could say to make him rise. There were only those soft comments, "Please—your captain would not like to see you now," to rise his indignance just enough where he turned jerkily and muttered something like, "He is not here," or "I already failed him." She'd shake her head, but he would not listen to her argue.

.

Finally her letter was answered but having expected it would in the mail, she was shocked to find Nagira on her doorstep one late evening. "C-Come in," she said quietly. "You received my letter?"

"Lady, I wouldn't be here if I hadn't, trust me. At least not in this fine house. It just so happens," he sat himself tentatively in a chair, "That I had business in the village with a contact of mine."

"Oh," Anxiously, she remained standing. "Well, I didn't mean to alarm you should I have, but please, I beg you to talk to him. He has withdrawn."

Nagira smirked sadly, "And what would you like me to say? What would you like me to do? Hm? Shall I wave a magic wand and erase this depression with happiness jutsu? Did you not _know_ whom you married?"

"He only…became this way shortly after Kiri, about eight months ago," she remembered to speak quietly, and quickly, "He…He's going to retire from active duty, but…there's no talking to him now—he has completely sequestered himself, I don't know what to do!" She communicated this with anticipating spirit, hungry for an answer, but Nagira remained unsurprised, or otherwise unmoved. "Please," she entreated, "Is there any way I can reach him? I have never…even seen depression this…heavy," Arisu collapsed herself in a sofa seat opposite him, as if the very thought had brought her down. "I love him," she said firmly, and again, quietly, "I need some way, some lever to give him the help he needs—if only…"

Nagira could see the genuine tears at bay in her eyes. "Well," he said after a while. "I hope Harou can still be the kind of man you deserve after all this. I admire your faithfulness to him. But…" the grey-haired man thought pensively for a moment while she waited anxiously, awake to every little sound in the house. "Well," Nagira said finally, "You must understand that Harou has always been this way. It's been in his nature to be reclusive. He has allowed pessimism and despair to rule his life, and honestly I'm still surprised he _married_ you…"

"This is a human being we're talking about!" she raised her emotion indignantly.

The woman nearly reminded Nagira of Karada's lavender-eyed lady, by way of simple dedicated faith. "Human beings posses love, love for the Lord, love for others, and love for themselves, the faculties in all those Harou has failed, most of all which love for himself. Honestly, if he's lasted this long—"

"Oh get out!" she rose heatedly. "I can see you have nothing to add."

Now, Nagira could see a faint trace of Karada in her.

Nagira stood, and he smiled. "Inform Nidaime. He won't want to hear about this, unless he already has, but you could get your husband help from the therapists. It probably…" He was about to comment on how it probably wouldn't work, "Well, it's something to try. I sometimes want to think of Karada as something of a psychotherapist, until I remember he had no license," Nagira chuckled.

"…Thank you." she said.

Nagira turned, as he stepped off the porch steps after she led him out, "Best of luck," Nagira wished genuinely. "You're a real sweetheart, sticking by him like this."

"Through sickness and in health," she said. "Honestly—why does everyone keep saying that?" she wondered aloud.

"Because us old guys have seen too much," Nagira winked a blue eye quickly. "And you know…you're a lot like him."

"Who?" she said, perplexed.

"Karada," Nagira smiled. "Karada never gave up on anybody. Hell, he loved his enemies even," Nagira turned his old blue eyes over the thick forest surrounded her small home. "I'm very sorry I can't help you—or him," he said truthfully. "For what it's worth, I hope it works out. I'm sorry I can't help."

She bid him goodbye, and she closed the door without a squeak of sound. Turning around on tip-toe, her heart gave a thud and dropped within her chest when she saw her husband standing in the doorway of the hall beyond the den. "Harou," she caught her breath. "You scared me."

He was leaning against the doorframe, very withdrawn and still, with unblinking hazel eyes peering out from the center of depression incarnate. His arms were at his sides, unassuming, yet she knew he must have heard every world spoken. "Harou," she said simply to his seemingly possessed form, "I only wrote him to ask for help."

"I do not need help," he answered calmly.

"Yes…you do."

"And what did he say?" said Harou, in a belittling tone of voice, "Hm? Has Karada been waiting outside for my confession? Hm?"

"He only tried to help." She inserted, on either Karada or Nagira's behalf.

"Damn their help!" his eyes flashed angrily. "I am left alone," he turned to retreat.

"No," she pleaded with all her heart, walking briskly for him, "Never alone…"

Again, he rejected her.

.

It began to make sense to her. The moment she returned, the moment she found the note on her pillow: _I love you. But I cannot torture you or the boy any longer. Please forgive me. Harou_. Frantically, she turned around and headed out the door again…: Where to look! She headed for the shinobi village, fearing he was dead.

"Oh! You're just in luck miss, I think he returned today."

"Where is a key?" she demanded, and suddenly taken aback, the woman produced one. "Why do you ask…?"

"I am his _wife!_"

"Oh…I did not know he had…"

.

Harou was unhappy. The ghost on the top floor opened the door to find a Konohagakure shinobi. "What," Harou said flatly. "Has there a problem with my discharge papers?"

"No sir. You have been summoned—I am to escort you to see Nidaime."

"Oh. I thought he'd left."

The ninja cleared his throat presumptuously.

"Fine…Fine. Let's get the bloody brawl over with," Harou grabbed his vest while the shinobi's brows were raised toward the ceiling. "Didn't you bring a mop with you to wipe clean my guts after he is through with me?"

The shinobi did not say.

.

"After this day, I hope never to see you again," began Hashirama's younger brother. "The only reason why my brother did not let you go, was that if you had committed suicide, our young village record would have looked quite bad. You may have even inadvertently incited other men such as yourself to consider… Harou Nekai. You have been given numerous chances to change your ways, but at least your wife has elected not to give up on you. You have been signed up for therapy sessions with our shinobi psychotherapists. And if, if by the end of it you manage to come alive to us again, the mapmakers will see to it your extensive knowledge is finally put to some good use. Kazuhiko, I know, continues awaiting you. But I warned you against the dangers of _wandering_ during your missions—"

"I object. I have _never_—" said Harou angrily, with no others present in the room to grant him anything less, but Nidai waved him off. "I warned you," Tobirama continued, "And still…you continue to alienate yourself," Nidai paused. "I realize it's harder for others to live and let go. I have had to deal with it myself. But…" Tobirama sighed. "If it has come to this, so be it. Dismissed."

.

"I am not going, dammit!" He said to the door where he opened it to find a shinobi, the exact same one on the other side, with a timely cough. "Oh damn you," Harou muttered.

"Sir? Come with me?" He said in a wanton tone as if the consequences were much, much greater. "Fine fine you ruddy little…" Harou trailed, picking up his vest off the kitchen chair. "I feel like a fucking sheep," he muttered freely, as a civilian.

"Do you have wool sir?"

"I bloody do—Thirty-five years of genuine spun, flawless, devoted service without a nick or scratch on the paper but upon myself, and this is how you all treat me. Meddling in my private life, why you should be ashamed of yourselves. Positively ashamed."

Ahead of him, the shinobi merely smiled.

.

"Harou…" Arisu stood up from the bench.

Harou noticed the shinobi continued to stand with him. He could not run. Yet. "Harou," she said his name gently, "I'll be here, when you get out."

"That is not necessary."

Arisu moved closer to him, and with a quiet voice she said, "The heart must always do the necessary thing. I will follow you anywhere."

"Arisu…"

"Go on."

With a deep sigh, Harou walked in, and shut the door behind him for an hour, every Tuesday and Thursday…? Oh he'll die!

He viewed an ordinary office, bleak gray walls, bleak gray-blue floor warmed by two brown sofa chairs, a moderate size cherry wood desk, both nautical and forest view paintings—prints, one looked like a southwestern prairie, stacks of red and blue spined books lined maple wood shelves on the walls, and a fair-haired woman sat on a blue chair behind the desk, "Harou Nekai…?"

He nodded shortly, a small smile coming to his mouth.

"Please, sit."

"I prefer to stand."

He did, too. The window on the east side, he noticed, had a splendid view of the mountainside—primarily where Harou and Saru-Shin used to sit and discuss so many things…He looked back at her, and then toward the clock. "We have an hour," she said. "Anything you want to discuss is fine—Anything at all. Nothing will ever leave this room."

"Then you will have a silent patient. I do not intend to tell you anything," and here, Harou chuckled. "These places always make me think you inject laughing gas into the air. It makes me laugh."

"Oh?"

"Yes, 'oh'. This is ridiculous," he said matter-of-factly. "Thirty-five years," he said again, "And my record is so clean an Uchiha could eat off it. And this, this is what it comes to…"

"You do realize, Nekai-san, your wife is as equally concerned about you, and she is the one who advocated this. She is the one who signed you up."

Here, he paused. Every one of his muscles was tense. He looked away, then back. "My personal life is my own—"

"And she has deemed it prudent to make you find help."

"Well—" he paused. "As I said, that's between me and her. I shall not discuss it with you."

A short silence followed, until he eyed the woman suspiciously, "Are you a Senju?" he asked curiously.

"Yes—my mother was."

Harou smirked.

"Was it obvious?"

"I suspected. There is a grand Senju family plot, to bring me down you know. Tell me how to live. Tell me how to fight. They've told me how to do everything but to chew my own food. Senju are arrogant like that."

"And Karada, was he arrogant?"

"No, he was…" Harou eyed her meanly. "That's why they called him a lunatic. He was a heart that did not recognize enemies or borders or prejudices…" the thought nearly brought him to tears. Harou shook his head. "Who are you. Really."

"Morino, Chinatsu."

"Oh!" It dawned on him finally, "You're his wife!"

She smiled, nodding. "I believe my husband is sensei now to your little boy…?"

"Yes," Harou nodded. "Forgive me."

"You're forgiven."

"We're you always…in this field?" he asked after a moment.

Chinatsu nodded.

"Hm." Harou glanced at the window. The Konohagakure afternoon was a sea blue over thick green and bits of beige and brown.

"I do need to know, though, what kinds of medication you're currently taking."

Harou smiled. "Nothing."

She wrote as much on her papers, confirming other personal information. He was a Pisces—'the same as Saru'. "No addictions?" she asked him.

"None."

The next silence entered in deeper, more unnerving than the last. Harou continued glancing at the clock with a growing beat of unsteadiness gripping his thin frame. A small tsuchi breeze could blow him over now, let alone a woman like her; Dalzen's wife, no less.

He never cursed senselessly as he had lately. He never felt such powerful animosity toward total strangers like he was now; within the last few weeks the violence, the moral indignance had been ebbing his calm exterior, grinding down his patience for adversity and such personal criticism. These thoughts, in this tense, unending silence clawed at his mind, ripping it apart to the bare threads: Monkey and Karada. Lord! He never missed them more than he did right now. Harou's heart skipped a precious beat. He nearly felt faint. "Curse," he muttered to himself.

"…Hm?"

"I said _curse!_ Curse me, curse this place."

Chinatsu stared at him calmly.

Harou threw his hands and sat down, lest he fell over and eyed the clock with an annoying glare. It wasn't even half over yet. Not by a long shot. He sighed loudly.

Chinatsu fought down a smile and said nothing.

The third silence wanted to rip him to shreds. Despite his long breaths, his heart continued pounding. Every object in that room could supply some distant memory, some thought or recollection—anything. Harou was fighting now, like a drowning man above the waves.

He stood, and walked around in hopes of shedding the spasms, but nothing worked. He knew it would not. Finally, he sat on the wide ledge of the window, and looked for himself and Saru-Shin, but no one was on the mountain. No one sat above Hashirama's carved face. And rightly so. Who would sit overtop with Senju ears and eyes as big as his? No modern fool would even dare. Harou took another deep breath and shuddered. The clock continued to display ample time. And the woman was still silent. He rose, and stood, feeling as if he might start raving in another language.

"I'm sorry," he said after a while.

"…Hm? For what?"

"Not cooperating. Is there not some way I can retire in peace?"

"Again," Chinatsu smiled. "Your wife wanted you here."

"Where my wife wants me should not matter to a shinobi consul, let alone Nidaime."

"But you see we shinobi are all alike. Regular therapy might not have had enough of that laughing gas."

Harou smiled. "You're a little shrewd, aren't you? I mean that in a kind way—you are after all married to the greatest man and mind to walk the halls of the intelligence division. Did like minds attract?"

"In a way…"

Harou looked away. Really. This hour was ridiculous. And despite his best efforts at uncommunicativeness, he actually said, after a quiet silence, "I don't know why Arisu married me."

Chinatsu suppressed a womanly smile. "Nekai-san, answer me please, do you know what 'love' is?"

Harou shot her a mean look until the sudden realization hit. His answer was clouded. His answer was no, should he have said as much aloud.

"And can you admit you have severe depression?"

Harou turned indignantly, unwilling to answer that question too.

Chinatsu seemed to gather her thoughts, or her own plan of mental attack. "Please, sit," she offered first.

"No," he said firmly. "I refuse to be cornered."

"Over the years," Hina said gently, "You must have refused yourself a great many things. The biggest of which, love."

"Untrue," he said with routine disavowal of the entire session.

"It may be unfathomable, why she married you, but that confusion comes from the truth there was nothing you liked about yourself. Now now, don't interrupt. I know this is hard to hear, but Harou, you are a precious human being, very worthy of everything she has tried to give you."

Harou turned, pacing angrily, half-hearing her words because to believe was to change, and to change was to leave the lonely place he carried with him wherever he went. "Be quiet," he muttered savagely.

"You have this voice inside yourself," Hina continued. "It does not originate with me. However, what _is_ said in these sessions is purely confidential. By all means—tell me—tell yourself where you grew up, and how."

"It is unimportant!" Harou barked back.

"It is not," Chinatsu said calmly. "I have been at this now for a very long time and I have learned _no_ one, as you say, are unimportant. A man of your intelligence and experience? You've simply lived too long in this funk. I'm surprised," she admitted. "But Harou—"

"No one is surprised," he stared at her coldly. "I have been a thorn in the Senju side nearly all of my life. No one wants me, and no one deserves me. I am useless as a father, husband, and shinobi, if I ever was one. I don't have 'heart' they said. Well let me tell you, I do not even have a name in this place anymore. All of it has been forgotten. All of it. Karada, the freelancers, all of it is gone, erased from history like unneeded blemishes. And who am I to remember those times, those ways, hm? I am obsolete. Yesterday's ninja. Even Monkey…" Here, Harou stopped, abruptly, considering his fervor he suddenly abated.

Again, Chinatsu took a moment to respond. "Then you have a problem."

"I have many problems," Harou cursed, walking off to the window, glancing at the horrid clock that showed more than twenty minutes between himself and the door he would fly out of.

"Where did this begin?" she said unassumingly, and was forced to ask this question again since Harou was determined not to answer until she looked down at the paper curiously, "You were Konoha born? Which part were you from?"

"Kusa," he spat quickly as if were an unspeakable curse. "Bloody, muggy, horrid Kusa. The squalid place of mosquitoes and stretches of brown river between the green plains, it's disgusting."

She blinked, and then discreetly she picked up her pen for the first time and scribbled…"Kusa," she repeated.

"Yes _Kusa_," Harou confirmed, staring out at the mountainside, waiting for something to appear. "It was the first place to screw me. Satisfied?"

"Um—yes, considering it wasn't on your file…" She trailed quietly. "…Parents?"

"Two of them," he said shortly.

"Ah. Well. I suppose everybody has two," she said. "Other guardians?"

"Guardians? You mean captors?"

The little word told her instantly what else she needed to know. Quietly, she reverted to instant silence in solemnity. It unnerved Harou even further. More than fifteen minutes yet to go. His bottled rage was still spilling like a suiton though a forest like in the days of old. "Arisu doesn't know," he said suddenly. "I mean—not anything more than…" He shook his head, cursing himself internally.

"…And Karada?"

"Wanted it out of me from the start like he knew it was there, just like all you other _nosy_ Senju," Harou suddenly felt ill. "I wasn't what Karada wanted. Monkey knew how to talk—I never did. Sure, he got it out of me eventually, but I didn't seek… It's _no_ place for a man to feel pity for the other—no place at all. I didn't want it, it was my burden alone, my mistake; no one should have to carry me over that water…not again."

After a while, she said again, "Love does not work alone."

"Love is a concept."

Abruptly, Harou stood, then the wave of sickness, physical and soulful, hit him all at once. He turned away. There was a small teal color sofa, behind the chair—he collapsed on that wearily, glancing at the clock. He couldn't take much more of this. He laid his head against the back, starting at the west wall.

"Your wife loves you," Hina said simply.

Her words provoked tears to front. "I wish I knew why," he murmured to himself.

"Which brings us back to the Kusa river line—"

"No," he said finally in a softer tone, picking his head up to look at her earnestly. "It's more than that. In fact, I haven't thought of it in quite some time. I'm content leaving it be. He's dead and gone. So is his ship. Destroyed… The only person I have been thinking of for the past twenty-five, twenty-six years has been…Saru-Shin…I miss him," Discreetly, Harou wiped away a tear only the south wall could view.

"Did he give you hope?"

The river of tears strengthened with her subtle shrewdness.

"Karada loved Monkey," Harou said after a moment, softly, "Everyone loved him. And I was jealous of him. He knew how to laugh like a little child. He was so innocent. The optimist," Harou laughed, "To the pessimist."

"You were together, often?"

"As much as we could, after we had to sign on with Hashirama's village. Nowadays, you can't hardly get away with freelance work," Harou commented, wondering how Nagira still operated.

"What kinds of things did you two talk about?"

Harou seemed to notice her. He also noticed the clock was closer now, giving him a brief second of peace while she pursued him, "Politics? People?"

"Anything," Harou rolled off his tongue.

"Do you talk to your wife in the same way, about anything?"

Harou glanced at her again, and stayed silent.

"Not in the last year?" Chinatsu suggested.

He maintained silence, sighing instead.

"Do you have trouble communicating?"

"Do you have trouble _communicating_," Harou said suddenly. "I know _exactly_ what you're doing, that's why I hated all this from the start!"

"Do you have trouble talking to your wife?"

He opened his mouth, ready to burst 'always' when he knew better. "Some marriages work better on a lack of communication," he said matter-of-factly.

Chinatsu bit back something else she wanted to say. "You're avoiding the question—" she continued, "You're avoiding yourself."

"It's how I've operated!" he exclaimed. "I see no damn reason to change now."

Chinatsu read, "Despondence, loss of interest, depression, apathy, all of these and more your wife has seen in you over the past year, growing deeper and darker still."

"Always had them."

"Even so, she loves you."

"Oh drop off," he said adamantly.

"Harou…you're suicidal."

"Damn…" he was about to affirm it when he trailed suddenly, hearing the words come from another person. He shut up immediately.

"Nekai-san, I want you to talk to your wife. She will not judge you, she will not scorn nor lecture, she will simply embrace you as she will do as soon as you walk out that door five minutes from now. I want you to take small steps. Very small steps. Even your silence is fine so long as you are with her. You may not have the people you once knew around you, but you do have a wonderful family, and there is adventure and hope out there should you go look for it. Your wife is such an optimist if she believes this will help you, and it will. Harou, I want you to _stop_ bringing yourself down. Now let me finish. Failure will be inevitable. But the first thing to do when you find yourself in a hole is to quit the damn digging. I want you to _stop_ _questioning_ what has already happened," Chinatsu paused to let him hear the words. "There are other connections worth forming and having to keep with you for the rest of your days. All of this will get worse before it gets better, I assure you. There is no instant happiness jutsu. These things take time. But your wife is the first step."

"I have…" his tone receded from the anger it held, "But…"

"Accept her," she said simply. "And just, _stop_, _questioning_ everything," Chinatsu said firmly. "I understand it's not easy, but you have an unfounded belief in your worthlessness. That's simply untrue. At a very young age, you learned to deny love. Accept it this time. Accept everything life has given you so far—you may even begin to realize this unbelievable marriage was the greatest gift you ever gave to yourself. Your wife is your best friend now. Trust me, I know marriage."

"But—that's…" he shook his head in anxiety, "No, I can't…I-I can't."

"Over thinking has produced too much worry. Don't think, and don't analyze. I know it means leaving a secure place, but the reward is far greater on the other side. Once you stop all of this internal questioning can you accept what you have around you. You do not have to be a man who relays only on the state of his loneliness to get by. There is happiness and worth to be measured, not simply the loss which a shinobi endures."

"But…"

"Don't think. And don't argue. If you walk out that door and find your wife has already spoken the fourteen words in genjutsu to make you fall in love with her forever, I want you to stand up and _accept_ forever, wherever it may lead."

"Everyone knew…that…was a joke…" Harou said with a minute to go, he referred to the odd, fabled genjutsu curse.

"My husband is a genjutsu master," Hina smiled playfully. "I wouldn't disregard it so easily."

The last minute expired in silence.

"See you Tuesday."

For whatever reason, he nodded, and swiftly, he would have leaped for the door had he not walked tentatively, and suddenly, upon grabbing the handle, Harou felt ill again.

"It's open."

Harou feared what—or rather, who, was on the other side. Fourteen words. Really, Harou only had to figure out the seven words to make her go away without pain.

Like a frightened child, Harou hurried past her gentle touch, slowing at the end of the hallway. Curiously poking her head in the open door to her left—"How did it go?"

Hina looked up. "Um…well," she eventually decided. "It went rather well."

Arisu smiled oddly. It was a weary smile upon the woman's face, but it was a determined one. Quickly, she hurried in pursuit of her husband.

.


	7. Yesterday's Ninja

Chapter 7  
_**Yesterday's Ninja**_

.

.

Given anti-depressants, more cutting words and emotions, and a wife and child who would not simply leave him be, instructing the boy lastly to listen to his sensei instead, Harou fled. He wasn't sure if he was under house arrest, but he should have been for as easily as he escaped Konohamaru—Konohagakure for dark Konoha forestland. And he began to wander. Harou headed southwest, not knowing where he was going, and not caring, feeling worse than he had in a long, long time.

After a long time of travel, he rested beneath the cool shade of an old, glossy green oak where the center branches were mostly dead, having been suffocated of light from all the other trees around it. Harou realized then, he must be quite close to Karada's home, the one lost among a fairy field in an open inlet where a woman tended her flowers. Should he go see, when the morning came…?

Harou slept on it.

.

"You are a man of infinite promise, and goodness."

These words returned to Harou in Karada's strong, soothing voice as Harou looked now at the Senju's house of dreams. The paint was cracked. The boards looked loose, but the seventy-two year old continued tending the wide array of flowers off the dusty front porch. Perhaps it was because the psychiatrist found him out, her innocence brought tears to Harou's eyes. What a simple life, he thought, turning away from the scene. Heading west. "Perhaps I should have stayed with the Konoha family," he said as he walked another mile. "Then were would I be?" he wondered seriously. Jockeys amused him. He used to be able to ride a horse very well. What would he have done, had he not gone with Sanyu to seek strength, ignoring the small stuff he already had in himself…?

"It does not affect me…" he thought in the silence around him of the old Kusa river line. Birds called distantly in the dark green forest, and the chipmunks rustled beneath the fallen brown leaves. "I only killed a man…"

.

_It's about time you received something from me. You do not know how deeply sorry I am for breaking your heart in this way_. Harou looked up. Taki was nice—and loud this time of year. The waterfalls, practically hidden around every corner, were lovely. _I never ever meant to. When life gets too hard,_ he wrote, _I run. Like the therapist says, I know you still care about me but it seems I cannot love, or if I can, it is not strong enough. Karada knew I was this kind of man. Nagira too. I am sorry I cannot be one for you now. I do not know what to do with myself now,_ he picked up after a long, dejected pause_. I have been trying to find my old captain, Saru-Shin even, but they are both quite dead. Did you know Arisu—I was supposed to watch over Karada's favorite pupil? He told me, after the night he and I told our stories, to protect Saru-Shin. He told me to protect him with my life, and do you know something? I fully intended to do so. I wanted to. I loved Saru-Shin like a little brother, even when I was jealous of him. But he told me he was taking someone else on his final mission He told me he'd be fine. They'd be fine. I should have argued with him more._

_He didn't come back. Everyone else did, but him. I failed. I failed to save him! Why was it not my life, and not his? The therapist says I must stop asking why, but it seems I will never let it go. Forgive me._

_Arisu. I admire your enduring sacrifice, but you're better off without me…_ Nothing pained him more than this,_ You deserve someone far better than me in your life. I am a man who cannot forget what once was. Please forgive me. I do not know if or when I will return. Until then, please take care of yourself, and tell the boy I'm sorry. Harou._

.

A month later, he was back in the village, intending to withdraw a small amount of money for himself. He entered in broad daylight under a transformation jutsu, and then he broke it on the east side of town. By chance, as Harou was walking down the road, he saw what looked to be Ichida Takato, and Morino Chinatsu, standing on the pavement, talking with strange, surreptitious smiles, at least Hina was. Quickly, Harou ducked under the shade and secrecy of the north alley, but he knew the younger man had noticed him, even if he had not looked behind. Harou remembered the file. Ichida was a strong sensory type. Sighing largely over his troubles all for a dumb ticket over borders, a minute later, the duel began: "…Harou Nekai?"

It was the Ichida, come alone, having ended his conversation with Dalzen's wife.

"What?"

"Oh, I thought it was you—I wasn't sure…I heard you were missing…"

"I retired!" Harou snapped.

"Oh—forgive me," Takato smiled coyly, "I just got back myself, from the north…since you're here, I wondered if you wouldn't mind coming to the tavern, near the offices. We're throwing Dalzen a surprise party tomorrow night."

"His thousandth scan?"

"His fiftieth birthday," Takato smiled.

"Oh…" Harou said dumbly. Fifty. What a number indeed thought the fifty-seven year old. "Um—yes, fine," he said as if he would come or consider.

"Great!" Ichida's young, clean-shaven face smiled.

It was like watching God smile.

Ichida left him then, hiding in the shadows no less like a rat in the ruin. Suddenly his money was no longer important to him anymore, nor that train ride to nowhere, nor the borders. He could easily break laws as a nobody. But surely he could not retreat to his apartment—Arisu would find out about it unless someone else was living there now. If it was one thing he'd learned about the opposite sex was that their powers of communication were great, mysterious, and worthy of awe. Harou sweat in the shade like a fugitive, though he had broken no laws thus far. He nearly longed for sea air now rather than balsam. By Jove—something should sting him bitterly soon or else he felt he might go numb completely…

He broke into his own apartment, later, feeling utterly exhausted from his journey. But before he collapsed on the dusty sheets, she had left him something in return, blanketed in a thin coat of dust, too. Curiously, he sat down and opened it to read: _If you come back here, know I will hold you in my arms Harou Nekai._

_You told me once you wouldn't mind having a place of your own—somewhere, alone. If that offer still stands, Dura and I would go with you, to the farthest reaches of known maps. Harou please do not continue alone. I will love you always, you are my match in every way, please do not desert me. Yours, Arisu_

Harou sighed. Not knowing what to do, he put the note in his pocket and laid there for a while, unable to sleep. Though all the world could forget him easily and what once was, the woman wouldn't. Even while tending flowers or trimming trees in a burgundy skirt and blue top, some might never forget certain men…what was once, meant…to _be_…Immediately, Harou sat up and left the apartment, through the front door this time. And as he walked to leave, he noticed a young boy, staring at him until he ran up to his father, "Dura?"

The boy only hugged him tightly. "Where have you been?" the boy asked.

His father looked around, as if his captain should be near. "Dura, I am leaving."

"But…" The boy's face suddenly produced an overflow of tears. "Dura, follow your sensei. He is a very smart man."

"But mom—"

"Your mother can cope. She is a strong woman," he said honestly. "Forget me."

"Papa!" Dura cried out.

Immediately, Harou left the shinobi village, and he did not return for one whole year.

.

He arrived in Konohagakure somewhere at about noon with a faint five o'clock shadow on his face. His clothes, though not sullied, were well worn and frayed. Brown and black with his hair graying yet in blonde and light brown color. For the sake of the song, he hummed 'The Minstrel Boy' softly as he walked on. It was Karada's favorite. Monkey learned it in three seconds flat. Harou, meanwhile, learned it the hard way. But Harou was purposeful in his walk now. He walked right into the open doors of the hospital—more accurately, the psychiatric ward. He sought her door. And upon hearing no heart-wrenching conversations or crying going on inside, he knocked, "Come in…"

Chinatsu nearly choked on her water when she saw the man, looking quite haggard as if he'd been out in the wilderness for several months, or a year to be more precise. She stood on impulse—"Nekai—Harou."

"Hello," he smiled.

Even she was confused.

"Did I interrupt? Oh I'm sorry—you're on lunch break. Forgive me."

"Ahhhm…Nekai…san…" Hina sat, moving her bottle of water at a safe distance so she might no spill it over her papers, and she sat back down with a calm surface rising about her exterior.

"Should I schedule an appointment and come back later?"

"No—I mean yes—I mean, come in, sit, please. Where in the _hell_ have you been?" She asked calmly, maintaining her voice fairly even.

"Here and there."

"Oh come now—my husband and you are almost the same—you just want to roam everywhere now don't you?"

He smiled again, taking a seat. "I am fifty-eight. Why wouldn't I want to see the word in my retirement."

"You're a regular Axel Heyst—you know that don't you?"

Harou cocked his head, smiling civilly, "I can wreck my own paradise, thank you."

Chinatsu eyed him intently through a queer silence that unnerved her, more than he. "Dammit, just answer my damn questions you fool. What has brought you back here."

"Your words."

"Does—Has your wife seen you?"

"No."

"Are you—are you back for long? Honestly, where in the world have you _been_?"

"Would you believe I used transformation jutsu and worked at a stable in east tsuchi?"

She stared at him, as if he had gone mad before her eyes. "Why?" was all she asked, with an open mouth.

"You told me never to ask why. You told me to stop questioning all the things that have happened to me, and around me. You told me…" Tears came to his eyes. "You told me it would get worse before it got better. And still. I had to run. I could not see—no, I could not believe there was a light at the end of the tunnel. I had nothing else to do," he responded after a moment. "And it was right there," he laughed sadly.

"Yes. And your _wife _was right in_ front_ of _**you**_," Chinatsu spoke now indignantly. "And yet you passed her and your child by," she scolded him meanly, "Honestly, what kind of man are you?"

"That's rather plain," he said, and she didn't argue. "But. I have decided to come back. I doubt I can face her, but I have decided to come back to this village, namely, and do whatever this blessed village tells me."

Chinatsu was at a loss for words while Harou smiled still, like now there was no way to get the damn crooked thing off his otherwise frowning, sad face.

"…Why?" Chinatsu said again.

"Because my island is too far away, and I am too old to swim to it now."

"…What—that—that's it?"

"Basically."

Hina breathed deeply, almost wanting to call the Senju police on him should she have had a messenger bird nearby. "Will you…come by here, again, to hear my 'words'?"

"I may."

A quick smile graced her face paired with a brief laugh. Again, she was almost speechless. "Oh pray God you do. What…Do you…" She paused, stringing her thoughts together coherently in the view of madness. "Can you really be no one but yourself?"

He stood up, smiling. "I chose a stable, didn't I? That counts for something."

He left her with a thank you, and Hina's head swam with surprise, stupor, and confusion. What he really needed was to be put away. He wasn't physically dangerous, at least not to her knowledge yet, but he could give the men of her field material for years for how unequivocally dashed he was. Chinatsu sighed, glancing at her own diminishing schedule. She wrote in one square, the current date, the ninja's initials…"A stable hand?" she thought aloud. "Eastern tsuchi…stable boy…Oh hell…" Chinatsu jumped up, "Nekai! Nekai!" she called after him, looking down through the main exit after cantering down the stairs, "Nekai?"

He turned with a brown arched brow, as if to say 'not so loud', and she glanced up at him—he was taller than she by an inch or two—Morino Chinatsu suddenly slapped him across the face with a bitter sting. A few people on the floor couldn't help but hear the painful smack. "How dare you," Hina said, "Did you runaway with an orchestra girl?"

Harou blinked his eyes wide in a flash of indignance, "I sure as hell did _not!_" he said firmly. He suddenly smiled through a large and bitter sting on his rough cheek—"I didn't change _that_ much, thank you. Honestly."

"…Oh," she said, her anger subsiding. "Then…carry on."

Harou smiled softly, and did so.

.

Six years later, he began the evenings alone staring into the mountainside with a bowl of miso soup and a forlorn, longing expression through the window of his apartment. The miso was supposed to warm the soul, but his remained quite frozen, as it always had been. "You're late, Saru-Shin," was what he said when the clock turned eleven, as he put his dishes away and returned to the ledge and no white-haired man was seen atop Hashirama's finely carved, massive head.

"Even for love, you would do it too."

Well, for the past seven years, Harou had not.

He rejected his beloved—his intended until the point even she finally stopped coming to see him, and he appreciated that on the surface… Deep inside, like a frayed old quilt, he was missing her wildly, in ways he could not even begin to explain. Or rather, in ways he could not bring himself to _admit_. The only thing that held him together thus far was cloaked in mystery to him. Even Chinatsu couldn't tell what it was that sent him back in service with the village, more namely, the mapmakers and the clerical men. He had not seen the Morino woman in four years or so. Her husband, was in a coma now. It was a sad situation that made him ask again… "Why not me? I am useless. I was always a useless shinobi. Saru did not deserve to die. But me…" And young Coushander—who passed on two years before with the shinobi giving his small private service, his boy, apparently (a young ninja himself) did not think so. Because apparently, Coushander did not part with Saru's honor medal. It was a remembrance, even if Coushander couldn't admit it to himself.

Harou suddenly heard another knock on his door. Wondering if it was either that young silver-haired man or Dura, Harou merely said, "Come in." Even though it was very late in the night, he decided it must be Dura, disobeying his mother, trying to talk to his apathetic father again productively. When Harou looked to see, he lost his breath. And breathless, he stood upright, in the presence of a lady—a woman he hadn't seen in a long, long time. The quickness of his movements caused him to lose his balance temporarily—his left hand stopped on the kitchen table to prevent him from falling. A small tsuchi wind could blow him over now.

Nearly shocked, she closed the door behind her tentatively, as if the slightest sound would set off tears of anger or sadness in her eyes—he did not know which, merely that he suddenly felt very, very warm. His heart pounded, staring at her aged form.

Arisu walked toward him slowly, as if conscious of that breeze, noticing the grand view he always had over the beige mountain; green shadows lining the top of it under the navy sky. "Hello," she said simply.

It was pain, and it was joy and hardship seeing her again. At fifty-five, she still looked quite young like the Ichida man, with wavy straw blonde hair and pink rose lips. She could see that pain in his eyes. He could see the same in hers. Two tortured souls—he moved a step and two, and then three, to be quite near her—"Arisu," he said quietly, taking the long-lost communication in hand, "Could you forgive me?"

Her lips quivered, but her answer was not shaky. "Yes," was all she said.

It was all she had to _continue_ saying to let him feel this continual grief inside himself. After another moment, hot and hesitant, she took him in her arms and her in his and her and her man began to cry. She could feel his tears against one side of her cheek. She held him, his thin frame seemed to have emaciated further while the muscle showed what was left of what once was—her salty tears ran over her cheeks holding him all the more tighter before he pulled her away, holding her arms. "Harou," she said, both their cheeks wet.

"Please forgive me," he said quietly. "I beg of you to forgive me."

"Harou…that's not the issue—I will always love you Harou Nekai. Please," she said gently. "Please come back to me. Please come back. It's now or never."

As soon as she said this, his hands fell, but she caught them in time, holding them. "Please come back. I'd do _anything_, you know that."

"Yes," he whispered, "I do."

"Then?"

"Oh Arisu," he murmured, his eyes still crying intermittently. "Arisu I have become tired," he said wearily. "Sixty-four years, and I am very, very tired," he leaned his head near hers as he said this.

"Then rest—let me watch over you now," her forehead leaned against his for a moment, "I beg you. You never wanted to be alone," she read his mind once again, looking up into his downcast eyes. "You must remember that—you have tortured yourself _too long_…" Quickly she wiped away a flux of tears down her cheeks. "Why didn't you let me help you?"

"…Karada has been watching over me, even now," he murmured, another small, clear drop running off the side of his face. She grimaced, looking away as another ghost got in the way. In turn, he moved right, breaking their careful hold on each other. Harou stared out the large window, toward the top of the mountain.

"Harou," she said disapprovingly as he continued to stare while she reached for his left hand.

"Don't you see them?" he said quietly, with a small smile on his face.

She glanced at what he was referring to. "Harou, you're right _here_," she said tiredly.

"No," he shook his head wistfully, tears glazing his hazel eyes. "We're out there." The light brought out the light brown and amber, and the bark around the edges—

"Harou, no…" she murmured, wanting to cry for him.

"Saru was late. Again."

"Harou…" Fresh tears rolled down her face.

"That's all right—I was tired anyway. We don't talk for very long, but oh do we talk…"

She let go, and turned away, outbid by ghosts. "Harou!" she suddenly shrieked, and when he turned, she slapped him across the face.

Her right hand, wet and regretful touched his arm, his black sleeve, urging his form to keep upright, "Harou please," she begged, "Please, I am right here!" she cried. "I know you still love me, I just know, so please! For God's sake pull yourself away from this misery. Did you tell him, what you just told me?" she asked, referring to Coushander's young boy who had troubled himself to see the troubled old man.

"No… …I told him…" Harou was smiling, "We were fools."

Her heart sank.

He stood there, smiling in pain and indecision until finally he swayed, leaning toward her gently, wondering if she would still accept his presence after so many attempts on his part to push her away. He imagined she would turn her shoulder the same way she did years ago and stomp out the door crying abjectly—not bothering to close it. That was the last time he saw her. But after hesitation, she caught him, and she embraced him again, leaning her head over his shoulder. She held him for as long as he could stand.

"Won't you leave?" he asked curiously.

She smiled, and her emotions escaped into more tears. "I never left you," she whispered emotionally.

"…Don't you know?" Arisu said finally, when they drew away, staring into each other's eyes, holding one another.

"…What?"

"I intended on keeping your name, for all eternity."

"My name…" he sighed. "Arisu, how—"

She put a finger on his mouth preventing him from continuing. "Yes, your name, Harou Nekai. Because I was led to you," she smiled tearfully, "Because you needed me, and I you. And because I still love you, much more than I can say."

_Don't question,_ were the therapist's words. It is what it _is_… Harou smiled faintly. "…You must be quite sure about that…"

She cried, "Yes! Heaven sake's yes!" She embraced him again.

.

"Would you come with me?"

She came to see him the following evening, earlier, and Arisu said, "Where?"

"I'd like to show you something," he said. His wife followed him outside, toward the infamous mountain. She did not like where he led her, but followed anyway without complaint, pleased enough they were holding hands like in old times to the theater or to home and to her surprise, he led her on Senju land, namely toward the memorials on the north-west side, open for the shinobi and the public to view: 'Passenger, if thou art a Soldier, remember the distinguished and gallant services rendered the Country by the Patriot, whose name has been carved here:'

"There is Karada's name," Harou showed, "And there is my friend Ryouma Saru-Shin. You will at least have proof, concrete proof now he was real."

"Oh, Harou…Do you see—they have not forgotten you."

"Perhaps—So why did Morino Chinatsu tell me of this place, and not Tobirama?"

Arisu did not have a ready answer.

The couple, still husband and wife, moved on from there, taking a walk through the gardens where Arisu felt comfortable enough to hold onto his arm, more than his hand. She was surprised when Harou in turn put his left hand over hers. "…Will you come home tonight?" she asked, wondering if she had managed to touch his heart yet in that way. If he still refused her, he was walking slow enough Arisu could try and convince him otherwise.

"To your apartment? Are you still renting your home?"

"No, I'm still renting _our_ home," she said. "And yes I mean my apartment," she gazed at him.

He did not respond—at least not right away. "…He did save my life," Harou admitted, realizing the fact.

"Who?"

"Hashirama. He saved my life twice, actually. I thanked him the first time. I thanked him heartfully the first time."

"You're avoiding my question."

"Dearest—I have evaded everything in my life time, not just you. But, the avoidance of you I regret the most. I could continue to say a lifetime of sorries, and still never make up for what I have done."

"Don't think of it," she sighed quietly, hearing the line one more time. "There's still time."

"Is there? What with coma, death, and invalidity?"

"Harou," she said disapprovingly. "My apartment is that way."

"Mine is this way."

"That's not very fair," a small smile tugged at one corner of her pink lips.

"I'm sorry."

"It's all right…Can you…not walk as far anymore?"

"No," he said softly.

She leaned her head against his shoulder with another pain in her heart for him. "Haven't you seen a doctor lately?" she asked without expecting affirmation.

"No."

A tear rolled down her cheek, but she began to smile, grasping his arm tightly. "I love you," she said. "I don't care what you say to it."

"You mean what I never said."

"I always understood your silence, except—"

"—Except?"

She smiled, "When you came…to that restaurant we used to go to. Remember? You sought me out. You never wanted to be alone."

"A man never does."

She smiled again, tears in her eyes, moving slowly with him. "And she will do him good and not evil all the days of her life."

"So you have done," he murmured.

"Because I love you," she said. After a while, she said, "How long, do you think it'd take you to reach tsuchi or taki now?"

"A couple business weeks—why?"

"Oh no reason, just curious…"

He watched her smile closely. While it diminished, her river of a tear glistened in the night like a trail of crystal dust, and the smile still stayed on her face like a dim-lit candle, glowing on through the night in which she stayed with him for a time more.

.

She stayed with him increasingly, while he lie on his bed atop the sheets, staring apathetically at the ceiling in a shinobi's clothes, except they where black. The old headband he had was on a small dresser. "I told Dura he could have it," Harou said to her like he was making a final will and testament, "Hush," she rejoined, putting a cold damp cloth over his forehead. A fever had come over him. "It's probably Kusa fever," he said, "getting back at me for crossing the border secretly in the first war to deliver messages. Spiteful Kusa," he smiled.

She sighed, murmuring, "Through sickness…and in health," she smiled. "Harou, are you sure you're not forcing this on yourself from the stress of seeing me?"

"Oh, honestly," he said melodramatically. "You make it sound as if I want to kill myself…"

"Talk like that is worse than swearing," she said.

His eyes suddenly watered. "Arisu…" he said quietly, gazing up at her, "Are you sure you don't have distant Senju blood in you?"

"I don't—why?"

"You talk like a Senju—no, no…you talk like _Karada_," Harou moved his head and stared at a viewless sight with reflective eyes.

"Is that a good thing?"

"Very good—I think—I think that's why I married you. You always reminded me…of Ryouma… Quick, call Chinatsu," he teased. "I'm having a final breakthrough. I can feel it now."

She grinned. "Oh Harou—"

"I killed a man."

She straightened abruptly, her eyes widening gradually—"…What…?"

He took up a short pause—"I did," he admitted without consternation. "When I was fifteen. Do you…Do you remember the captain?"

"Captain?"

"Of the ship."

"You mean…?"

"Yes."

"Yes," she confirmed, giving a small nod.

"I think I killed him. On the inside."

Her mouth was open. She waited a while for him to continue.

"He's the only man I killed…who wasn't an enemy on the battlefields…It was when…It was the first assignment I had with Karada, outside Konoha's borders," Harou smiled, "Do you know where he went? Oh Kusa. Kusa of course. Damned old forgotten Kusa…" he murmured, staring at the ceiling. "I should have learned since that day, never to step aboard ships… Never… I was foolish enough to go back there. In the night, I left him, to go aboard that damned old ship, and I saw him. I saw the man who kept me for two years…He was…asleep. He…For as twisted as he was, he wanted to apologize," Harou suddenly turned silent for a while until he roused himself to finish the story. "He wanted to apologize, I think…and the next day, he died. I didn't forgive him. I never forgave him."

"…You were just a boy," Arisu said quietly, stroking the top of his receded hairline.

"Yes. Yes I was."

Suddenly…she put two and two together. "Harou!" she exclaimed.

He winced.

"Oh Harou—Dura loves you, you were never that cruel, not once—"

He sat upright, "For leaving you all? I am a monster! No different than—!"

She tried putting a hand on his arm, but he turned away. "There is still time," she said, putting her emphasis on the words.

"No!" he cried. "There is _no_ more time! _Look_ at me! Did you ever see such a poor excuse for a man, let alone shinobi. _Usque ad finem_, as the Senju say, well, here is the bloody end—too many men had to bleed and die for it. Alone. In the darkest of nights—in the darkest of hours. Their names carved on stones—their lives, their dreams destroyed. Nothing changed. Nothing changed at all, Arisu. Chaos, war, immorality—Lord!" He finished his rant with silence from above.

After a short second, her mouth began to smile. He noticed this. He stared at her with abstemious doubt. "I…love you," she told him.

"…Love," The cold compress was making damn the spot it lay, crumpled, near his left hand. "Love," he sighed.

"Do you still love me?"

"I have always loved you."

"Then what is lost?"

He was quiet.

She grinned, "There, do you feel much better now?"

He grumbled.

She slid over to him, smiling broadly, feeling his forehead quite tepid after prolonged cold. She leaned in closer, hoping to smell a faint trace of cologne from the day before. He turned his head, slightly, out of instinct, away from her. She moved in, closer, from experience. She rested a hand on his form, and kissed him. Yesterday he would have fought her off again, but today he did not.

.

"'The minstrel boy, to the war is gone—  
in the ranks of death ye'll find him.  
His father's sword, he hath girded on,  
and his wild harp slung behind him.  
'Land of song!' said the warrior bard,  
'Tho all the world betrays thee—  
One sword, at least, thy rights shall guard,  
One faithful harp shall praise thee…'"

"Karada's favorite," he added after a while in a normal voice. "And if it was Karada's favorite—it was ours, too…"

.

"Mom—where have you been?" her Dura asked almost as soon as she returned home. While the shape of his eyes, his hair, darker than hers and a little straighter like his father's, he had her eyes—her nose, and a thin little mouth her and Nekai both shared. She turned away; Harou's 'fever' rushed suddenly onto her cheeks like a mad tide at noon. "…Mom?" he smiled inquisitively.

"Um…here and there," she answered her sixteen year old vaguely. He was still quite short for his age, and because of that, quite young looking. He had a coy, reserved voice that made her think Harou's must have been the same way at this age.

"Were you with father?"

"Maybe…Now don't get your hopes up yet young man. Your father has been through so much in his lifetime. He's not as young as he once was, and he is still in a great deal of pain. He's still…focused on what once was," she said while rummaging though her kitchen to fix the boy some dinner. "But…who knows…" she smiled faintly, remembered the afternoon. "People change slowly—gradually. It may take him just as long to come back to us."

Nothing she could say could wipe the heartful, and hopeful smile upon his innocent face. He was happy, the happiest he'd been for a long time. "Then, may I go see him? Tonight?"

"Not tonight dearest—maybe tomorrow—Give him some time, tonight."

Dura nodded slowly.

.

Then, suddenly, barely two weeks since the inception of their precious reunion she was sure was finally changing him, finally bound to morph him out of his misery and return him home to her and their boy for keeps, she went to see him early one morning, having a key. She opened the door slowly, but she failed to close it upon seeing a folded white piece of paper, a note, lying inauspiciously on his kitchen table…The mountainside, she noticed, through the great square window was engulfed in yellow, like the color in a jasmine flower. Her heart skipped a beat… "Harou…!"

His bedroom was vacant. "Harou!" she shrieked, running out of there, growing wild with worry, not knowing where else to look but the mountainside. She raced down front and center, past the people and shops, and hurried up the inner staircase, her legs failing her when she would not stop for rest. She reached the guest house, where shinobi were regularly stationed at, her bones numb, her breath short, her muscles beginning to quake. She walked on hesitantly, looking over the folds in the rock in front and behind her. Finally she moved on, looking, her arms shaking, and then she saw something—someone. She began to cry, kneeling as she fell.

.

In danger of losing her sanity, she wept, like a hard, unending rain in Rain country. In ten minutes, she flooded their rivers, in ten hours sent the swell off to arid suna, and ten days, after the brief funeral, she could have easily flooded and erased the land of waves.

"Harou how could _you!"_ she screamed in private.

Now she began to ask herself the same question he did: Why? Just when she thought—just when she wanted to believe nothing else could harm them now…

Why, oh why…

She would miss the little things, as she had in the some odd years she stopped seeing him. She already missed the long nights she spent pacing, waiting, for him to come home from Lord knows where, in a such a remote place she'd never heard, so he'd treat a small history of it to buy time to shy away from her renewed passion seeing his furtive hazel eyes again. Her passion. "Even for love…" her eyes suddenly welled again, "he would…"

"…Mom…?"

She had not heard their son come in. "Mom—I made you something…" He set the tray on the end of her bed. She sat upright while Dura looked away, screwing his face in pain and grief, hoping to bottle it inside of him. "Oh honey," They both began to cry, "Come here," she entreated.

He came up and sat on the edge beside her reluctantly and his mother pulled him nearer as he bit down hard sobs from the hard loss. "Hush," she said with a cracked voice. Dura sobbed against her.

Taki had nothing on her. When she reached for a tissue, she saw the ominous white note he'd left behind—one of the many objects he'd left behind, but the most disappointing. Arisu wanted to cry out, fight and shriek at him, but it would change nothing now_. _It would change nothing. Nothing at all. _I love you both, _he wrote._ Dura, it's not your fault. I know you only tried to help. Arisu, thank you. Please forgive me one last time._

She sighed deeply, collecting herself as best she could. "You can be sure he loved us," she said quietly.

"But not enough!" Dura cried against her chest.

Tearfully, she smiled. "…Still," she said fondly, remembering Harou in the soft morning light, when he was still alive; a heart full of sorrow, and a spirit full of shyness. "…Still. You never knew your father like I do," Dura glanced up at her quizzically, and also, blurrily. Arisu breathed deeply. "He was a gentle soul, at heart, just like you. Shy and gentle, buried underneath so much cynicism," she nearly laughed—she did, very softly. "To love somebody," she glanced at her son with wisdom, "To love and be loved is the greatest gift you could ever have, and the greatest thing you will ever do. Without restrictions, without end. And I loved him…" _…Till death do us part_. She shook her head. _Forever, as long as that may be. You may retreat, in death,_ "So I will find him, when the time comes. We will all be together again." _I hope. I can pray._

She held her breath tentatively in that fragile moment, lest all the world came crashing down. "Next time…" she murmured hopefully.

"But…father…" Dura spoke for his father's soul.

She smiled tearfully. "Thank you for the dinner. Dura," she said as he pulled himself up. "If ever, years from now, you become sad and forlorn, come to me. Come to your friends," Here he looked down dejectedly. "Please do. This won't be the end. This is not the end of it. That's an order, not a request, dearest…" she stroked his hair, and somehow, with his eyes downward, hidden, she felt like she was holding Harou, at fifteen or sixteen. "You are so precious Dura—to both of us. You're father was too ill to express it properly, but he—" she choked, "Loved you. He wanted the best for you. So do I. Though…Though Harou believed his life was meaningless," she struggled to speak, "He left you, with a history," she smiled lightly. "A history—a life spent near the side of one of the greatest Senju, and the greatest of men, the selfless—self-sacrificing kind. Your father was one of those men, Dura, while his friend was still alive…even after…" she said, remembering the night they met. "Harou was one of those men, and so proud to be. He was. So much so that…"

"Go on," she said after she wiped her cheek, "Try and calm yourself, sweetheart. If you don't want to be alone, come see me later."

He nodded shortly, and left her room quietly.

After a while spent blowing her nose and drying her face, she retrieved the tray of soup Dura prepared for her, and she felt a little calmer as she ate. Calmer until Harou came into her thoughts again, rolling over salty tears. She smiled through it all painfully, thinking of him, thinking of the love they had. Arisu thought of Chinatsu, wondering if a slot was open after the other woman's set of troubles were over. Then Arisu wondered if she should move back, and see a therapist there. That _was_ their home, after they wed for so many happy years until somewhere in the ninth—tenth year, Harou's despair got the better—the best of him. Arisu smiled while her face was totally wet once more. She wiped it dry—for a fleeting moment…

He said he couldn't love, and yet it was made there. Waiting up all night—for him to come home, for him to come around. It seemed like ages, the memory, and the feeling. The happiest years of her life were there in that home, with him, her old-fashioned shinobi who braved inclement weather and enemy ninja for his high calling of little white messages in his daily work. "Where did you say you traveled to…?" she asked him time and again. After he gave her all the information he had, she gave him what all she could. It was where his communication, his conversation and her own amused them both; where he released small amounts of memory and privacy to her, after time, after hours. His varied adventures with and without the young man named Monkey, Harou's secrets; his beliefs, all of it was fleshed out in that home or on the path there. Where the wind would blow outside, changing both time, and the years as they pressed on, even now. Where he loved her, and she loved him, enormously. His love—she remembered his love was small, not for its size, but for it's meekness and humility, buried underneath that strong, indifferent façade… Those nights, those fond, loving nights were, perhaps, the single greatest 'victory' either of them had ever known.

.

.

.

.

_May 8 or 9 to July 6_

Kariko Emma—  
Caliko


End file.
